THE LIBRARY of VICTORIA UNIVERSITY Toronto T. and T. Clark's Publications. LANG E'S Messrs. CLAEK have now pleasure in intimating their arrangements, in con- junction with the well-known firm of Scribner and Co., of New York, and under the Editorship of Dr. Philip Schaff, for the Publication of Translations of the Commentaries of Dr. Lange and his Collaborateurs, on the Old and New Testaments. Of the Old Testament, they have published the COMMENTARY ON THE BOOK OF GENESIS, One Volume, imperial 8vo, to which is prefixed a Theological and Homiletical Introduc- tion to the Old Testament, and a Special Introduction to Genesis. By Professor Tayler Lewis, LL.D., comprising Excursus on all the chief sub- jects of Controversy. COMMENTARY ON PROVERBS, ECCLESIASTES, AND THE SONG OP SOLOMON, in One Volume. By Otto Zockler, D.D., Professor of Theology at Greisswald. COMMENTARY ON JEREMIAH AND LAMENTATIONS, in One Volume. By Dr. C. "W. E. Nagelsbach. 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Each of the above volumes (three on Old Testament and five on Epistles) will be supplied to Subscribers to the Foreign Theological Library and Ante-Nicene Library, or to Purchasers of complete sets of Old Testament (so far as published), and of Epistles, at 15s. The price to others will be 21s. each volume. Dr. Lange's Commentary on the Old and New Testamenta fs the combined labour of a large number of the most able and distinguished scholars and divines of Europe, who have spared no pains to make it the standard commentary of Chinstendom. Dr. Schaff is being assisted by several of the most eminent scholars in the United States, among whom are Professors Shedd, Yeoman, Hackett, Kendrick, Day, Drs. Poor, Schaeffer, and Tayler Lewis, and has made large and valuable additions, comprising nearly one- third more matter than the original German. It thus combines the united evangelical scholarship of Europe and America, and is a commentary truly scholarly and learned, yet popular, orthodox, and sound in the evangelical sense, while it is unsectariau and liberal, and catholic in spirit and aim, combining with original research the most valuable results of the exegetical labours of the past and the present, and making them available for the practical use of the clergy and the general good of the Church. No minister's or layman's library will be complete without it. ' It is with no common feelings of gratification that we note the progress of this truly noble wor^k of Dr. Lange's through the press. There is no commentary in our language at all to compare with it ii fulness, availableness, and scholarly care. . . . Those who have been turned away from buying or using it by reason of its bulk, or its look as a compilation, have lost much thereby. The series combines in quite an unexampled way original scholarship of the first order, with doctrinal and homiletical matter of a very rich and varied character.' — Presbyterian, CLARK'S P0EEI6N THEOLOGICAL LIBRARY. FOURTH SERIES. YOL. III. fletl anti Btlit\it\) on tl)e $entateuc|). VOL. 11. EDINBURGH: T. & T. CLARK, 38, GEORGE STREET. MDCCCLXXII. PPwINTED BY MURRAY AND GIBB, FOE T. & T. CLARK, EDINBURGH. LONDON HAMILTON, ADAMS, AND CO. DUBLIN, .... JOHN ROBERTSON AND CO. NEW YORK, . . , C. SCRIBNER AND CO. BIBLICAL COMMENTARY ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. C. F. iEIL, D.D., AUD F. DELITZSCH, T).D., PROFESSOKS OF THEOLOGY. VOLUME II, THE PENTATEUCH. TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN BY THE REV. JAMES MARTIN, B.A., NOTTINGHAM. EDINBURGH: T. & T. CLAEK, 38, GEORGE STREET. MDCCCLXXII. EMMANUQ! .^ qii<\ TABLE OF CONTENTS. THE SECOND BOOK OF MOSES (EXODUS). Pagro 9 Ojnsecration of Israel as the Covenant Nation. Deliverance from Egypt (Chap, xii.-xiii. 16), ..... Journey from Succoth, and Passage through the Red Sea (Chap. xiii. 17-xiv. 31), . . . . . .38 Moses' Song at the Eed Sea (Chap. xv. 1-21), . . .49 Israel conducted from the Red Sea to the Mountain of God (Chap. XV. 22.-xvii. 7), . . . . . .57 Conflict with Amalek (Chap. xvii. 8-16), . . . .77 Jethro the Midianite in the Camp of Israel (Chap, xviii.)', . . 83 Arrival at Sinai, and Preparation for the Covenant (Chap, xix.), . 88 The Ten Words of Jehovah (Chap. xx. 1-21), . . .105 The Leading Features in the Covenant Constitution (Chap. xx. 22- xxiv. 2), ....... 126 Conclusion of the Covenant (Chap. xxiv. 3-18), . 156 Directions concerning the Sanctuary and Priesthood (Chap, xxv.- xxxi.), ........ 161 The Covenant Broken and Renewed (Chap, xxxii.-xxxiv.), . 220 Erection of the Tabernacle, and Preparation of the Apparatus of Worship (Chap, xxxv.-xxxix.), .... 245 Erection and Consecration of the Tabernacle (Chap, xl.), , . 255 8 TABLE OF CONTENTS. THE THIRD BOOK OF MOSES (LEVITICUS). Introduction. Contents and Plan of Leviticus, .... Pag« 261 Exposition. I. Laws and Ordinances determining the Covenant Fellowship between the Lord and Israel (Chap, i.-xvi.) : — The Laws of Sacrifice (Chap, i.-vii.), . 1. General Rules for the Sacrifices (Chap, i.-v.), . 2. Special Instructions concerning the Sacrifices for the Priests (Chap. vi. and vii.), Induction of Aaron and his Sons into the Priestly Office (Chap, viii.-x.), ...... Laws relating to Clean and Unclean Animals (Chap, xi.) (Cf. Deut. xiv. 3-20), .... Laws of Purification (Chap, xii.-xv.), . The Day of Atonement (Chap, xvi.), II. Laws for the Sanctification of Israel in the Covenant Fellowship of its God (Chap, xvii.-xxv.): — Holiness of Conduct on the part of the Israelites (Chap, xvii.- XX.), ....... Holiness of the Priests, of the Holy Gifts, and of Sacrifices (Chap. xxi. and xxii.), ..... , Sanctification of the Sabbath and the Feasts of Jehovah (Chap, xxiii.), ...... Preparation of the Holy Lamps and Shew-Bread. Punishment of a Blasphemer (Chap, xxiv.), .... Sanctification of the Possession of Land by the Sabbatical and Jubilee Years (Chap, xxv.), .... Promises and Threats (Chap, xxvi.), .... Of Vows (Chap, xxvii.), ...... 264 271 317 333 857 372 394 407 428 437 451 455 467 479 THE SECOND BOOK OF MOSES. (EXODUS.) CONSECRATION OF ISRAEL AS THE COVENANT NATION. DELIVERANCE PROM EGYPT. — CHAP. XII.-XIII. 16. HAP. xii. 1-28. Institution of the Passover. — The deliverance of Israel from the bondage of Egypt was at hand ; also their adoption as the nation of Jehovah (chap. vi. 6, 7). But for this a divine consecration was necessary, that their outward severance from the land of Egypt might be accompanied by an inward sever- ance from everything of an Egyptian or heathen nature. This consecration was to be imparted by the Passover — a festival which was to lay the foundation for Israel's birth (Hos. ii. 5) into the new life of grace and fellowship with God, and to renew it perpetually in time to come. This festival was there- fore instituted and commemorated before the exodus from Egypt. Vers. 1-28 contain the directions for the Passover : viz. vers. 1—14 for the keeping of the feast of the Passover before the departure from Egypt, and vers. 15-20 for the seven days' feast of unleavened bread. In vers. 21-27 Moses com- municates to the elders of the nation the leading instructions as to the former feast, and the carrying out of those instructions is mentioned in ver. 28. Vers. 1 and 2. By the words, " in the land of Egypt^* the law of the Passover which follows is brought into connection with the giving of the law at Sinai and in the fields of Moab, and is distinguished in relation to the former as the first or foun- dation law for the congregation of Jehovah. The creation of 10 THE SECOND BOOK OF MOSES. Israel as the people of Jehovah (Isa. xliii. 15) commenced with the institution of the Passover. As a proof of this, it was pre- ceded by the appointment of a new era, fixing the commence- ment of the congregation of Jehovah. " This month" {i.e. the present in which ye stand) " he to you the head (i.e. the be- ginning) of the months, the first let it he to you for the months of the year;" i.e. let the numbering of the months, and therefore the year also, begin with it. Consequently the Israelites had hitherto had a different beginning to their year, probably only a civil year, commencing with the sowing, and ending with the termination of the harvest (cf. xxiii. 1 6) ; whereas the Egyptians most likely commenced their year with the overflowing of the Nile at the summer solstice (cf. Lepsius, Chron. 1, pp. 148 sqq.). The month which was henceforth to be the first of the year, and is frequently so designated (chap. xl. 2, 17 ; Lev. xxiii. 5, etc.), is called Ahih (the ear-month) in chap. xiii. 4, xxiii. 15, xxxiv. 18, Deut. xvi. 1, because the corn was then in ear ; after the captivity it was called Nisan (Neh. ii. 1 ; Esth. iii. 7). It cor- responds very nearly to our April. Vers. 3-14. Arrangements for the Passover. — '^ All the con- gregation of Israel" was the nation represented by its elders (cf. ver. 21, and my bibl. Arch. ii. p. 221). " On the tenth of this (i.e. the first) month, let every one take to himself ntJ> (a lamb, lit. a young one, either sheep or goats ; ver. 5, and Deut. xiv. 4), according to fathers houses^* (vid. vi. 14), i.e. according to the natural distribution of the people into families, so that only the members of one family or family circle should unite, and not an indiscriminate company. In ver. 21 mishpachoth is used instead. " A lamh for the house," n^2i, i.e. the family forming a house- hold.— Ver. 4. But if " the house he too small for a lamb" (lit. " small from the existence of a lamh" |0 comparative : Htflp ni''n is an existence which receives its purpose from the lamb, which answers to that purpose, viz. the consumption of the lamb, i.e. if a family is not numerous enough to consume a lamb), " let him (the house-father) and his nearest neighhour against his house take (sc. a lamb) according to the calculation of the persons." npap computatio (Lev. xxvii. 23), from Dp3 computare; and D3^, the calculated amount or number (Num. xxxi. 28) : it only occurs in the Pentateuch. " Every one according to the measure of his eating shall ye reckon for the lamh:" i.e. in deciding whether CHAP. XII. 6. 11 several families had to unite, in order to consume one lamb, they were to estimate how much each person would be likely to eat. Consequently more than two families might unite for this purpose, when they consisted simply of the father and mother and little children. A later custom fixed ten as the number of persons to each paschal lamb ; and Jonathan has interpolated this number into the text of his Targum. — Ver. 5. The kind of lamb : D''Ori integer, uninjured, without bodily fault, like all the sacrifices (Lev. xxii. 19, 20) ; a male like the burnt-offerings (Lev. i. 3, 11) ; HiK' }3 one year old {iviavaco<;, LXX). This does not mean " standing in the first year, viz. from the eighth day of its life to the termination of the first year" (Rahh. Cler., etc.), a rule which applied to the other sacrifices only (chap. xxii. 29 ; Lev. xxii. 27). The opinion expressed by Ewald and others, that oxen were also admitted at a later period, is quite erroneous, and cannot be proved from Deut. xvi. 2, or 2 Chron. XXX. 24 and xxxv. 7 sqq. As the lamb was intended as a sacri^ fice (ver. 27), the characteristics were significant. Freedom from blemish and injury not only befitted the sacredness of the purpose to which they were devoted, but was a symbol of the moral integrity of the person represented by the sacrifice. It was to be a male, as taking the place of the male first-born of Israel ; and a year old, because it was not till then that it reached the full, fresh vigour of its life. " Ye shall take it out from the sheep or from the goats ;" i.e., as Theodoret explains it, " He who has a sheep, let him slay it ; and he who has no sheep, let him take a goat." Later custom restricted the choice to tlie lamb alone ; though even in the time of Josiah kids were still used as well (2 Chron. xxxv. 7). Yer. 6. " And it shall he to you for preservation (ye shall keep it) until the fourteenth day, and then . . . slay it at sunset." Among the reasons commonly assigned for the instruction to choose the lamb on the 10th, and keep it till the 14th, which Jonathan and Hashi supposed to refer to the Passover in Egypt alone, there is an element of truth in the one given most fully by Fagius, " that the' sight of the lamb might furnish an occa- sion for conversation respecting their deliverance from Egypt, . . . and the mercy of God, who had so graciously looked upon them ;" but this hardly serves to explain the interval of exactly four days. Hofmann supposes it to refer to the four doroth 12 THE SECOND BOOK OF MOSES. (Gen. XV. 16), which had elapsed since Israel was brought to Egypt, to grow into a nation. The probability of such an allu- sion, however, depends upon just what Hofmann denies without sufficient reason, viz. upon the lamb being regarded as a sacri- fice, in which Israel consecrated itself to its God. It was to be slain by " the whole assembly of ike congregation of Israeli not by the whole assembled people, as though they gathered to- gether for this purpose, for the slaughtering took place in every house (ver. 7) ; the meaning is simply, that the entire congrega- tion, without any exception, was to slay it at the same time, viz. " between the two evenings''^ (Num. ix. 3, 5, 11), or " in the evening at sunset" (Deut. xvi. 6). Different opinions have pre- vailed among the Jews from a very early date as to the precise time intended. Aben Ezra agrees with the Caraites and Sama- ritans in taking the first evening to be the time when the sun sinks below the horizon, and the second the time of total dark- ness ; in which case, " between the two evenings" would be from 6 o'clock to 7.20. Kimchi and Bashi, on the other hand, regard the moment of sunset as the boundary between the two evenings, and Hitzig has lately adopted their opinion. According to the rabbinical idea, the time when the sun began to descend, viz. from 3 to 5 o'clock, was the first evening, and sunset the second ; so that " between the two evenings" was from 3 to 6 o'clock. Modern expositors have very properly decided in favour of the view held by Aben Ezra and the custom adopted by the Caraites and Samaritans, from which the explanation given by Kimchi and Bashi does not materially differ. It is true that this argu- ment has been adduced in favour of the rabbinical practice, viz. that " only by supposing the afternoon to have been in- cluded, can we understand why the day of Passover is always called the 14th (Lev. xxiii. 5 ; Num. ix. 3, etc.);" and also, that " if the slaughtering took place after sunset, it fell on the 15th Nisan, and not the 14th." But both arguments are based upon an untenable assumption. For it is obvious from Lev. xxiii. 32, where the fast prescribed for the day of atonement, which fell upon the 10th of the 7th month, is ordered to commence on the evening of the 9th day, " from even to even," that although the Israelites reckoned the day of 24 hours from the evening sunset to sunset, in numbering the days they followed the natural day, and numbered each day according to the period CHAP. XII. 7. 13 between sunrise and sunset. Nevertheless there is no formal disagreement between the law and the rabbinical custom. The expression in Deut. xvi. 6, " at (towards) sunset," is sufficient to show that the boundary line between the two evenings is not to be fixed precisely at the moment of sunset, but only some- where about that time. The daily evening sacrifice and the incense offering were also to be presented " between the two evenings" (chap. xxix. 39, 41, xxx. 8 ; Num. xxviii. 4). Now as this was not to take place exactly at the same time, but to precede it, they could not both occur at the time of sunset, but the former must have been offered before that. Moreover, in later times, when the paschal lamb was slain and offered at the sanctuary, it must have been slain and offered before sunset, if only to give sufficient time to prepare the paschal meal, which was to be over before midnight. It was from these circum- stances that the rabbinical custom grew up in the course of time, and the lax use of the word evening, in Hebrew as well as in every other language, left space enough for this. For just as we do not confine the term morning to the time before sun- set, but apply it generally to the early hours of the day, so the term evening is not restricted to the period after sunset. If the sacrifice prescribed for the morning could be offered after sun- rise, the one appointed for the evening might in the same manner be offered before sunset. Yer. 7. Some of the blood was to be put (iri3 as in Lev. iv. 18, where ^^^ is distinguished from i^l^}, to sprinkle, in ver. 17) upon the two posts and the lintel of the door of the house in which the lamb was eaten. This blood was to be to them a sign (ver. 13) ; for when Jehovah passed through Egypt to smite the first-born, He would see the blood, and would spare these houses, and not permit the destroyer to enter them (vers. 13, 23). The two posts with the lintel represented the door (ver. 23), which they surrounded: and the doorway through which the house was entered stood for the house itself, as we may see from the frequent expression "in thy gates," for in thy towns (chap. xx. 10; Deut. v. 14, xii. 17, etc.). The threshold, which belonged to the door quite as much as the lintel, was not to be smeared with blood, in order that the blood might not be trodden under foot. By the smearing of the door-posts and lintel with blood, the house was expiated and consecrated on an altar. That the 14 THE SECOND BOOK OF MOSES. smearing with blood was to be regarded as an act of expiation, is evident from the simple fact, that a hyssop-bush was used for the purpose (ver. 22) ; for sprinkling with hyssop is never pre- scribed in the law, except in connection with purification in the sense of expiation (Lev. xiv. 49 sqq. ; Num. xix. 18, 19). In Egypt the Israelites had no common altar ; and for this reason, the houses in which they assembled for the Passover were con- secrated as altars, and the persons found in them were thereby removed from the stroke of the destroyer. In this way the smearing of the door-posts and lintel became a sign to Israel of their deliverance from the destroyer. Jehovah made it so by His promise, that He would see the blood, and pass over the houses that were smeared with it. Through faith in this pro- mise, Israel acquired in the sign a firm pledge of its deliverance. The smearing of the doorway was relinquished, after Moses (not Josiah, as Vaihinger supposes, cf. Deut. xvi. .5, 6) had transferred the slaying of the lambs to the court of the sanctuary, and the blood had been ordered to be sprinkled upon the altar there. Vers. 8, 9. With regard to the preparation of the lamb for the meal, the following directions were given : " They shall eat the lamb in that night " (i.e. the night following the 14th), and none of it S<3 (" underdone'^ or raw), or p^"^ (" boiled" — lit. done, viz. D''?33 ?tJ'30 done in water, i.e. boiled, as ?t^3 does not mean *"~T\;7 7 7 -T to be boiled, but to become ripe or done, Joel iii. 13) ; " but roasted with Jlre, even its Jvead on (along with) its thighs and en- trails ;" i.e., as Rashi correctly explains it, " undivided or whole, so that neither head nor thighs were cut off, and not a bone was broken (ver. 46), and the viscera were roasted in the belly along with the entrails," the latter, of course, being first of all cleansed. On Q"'V";? aiid 3"]i5 see Lev. i. 9. These regulations are all to be regarded from one point of view. The first two, neither under- done nor boiled, were connected with the roasting of the animal whole. As the roasting no doubt took place on a spit, since the Israelites while in Egypt can hardly have possessed such ovens of their own, as are prescribed in the Talmud and are met with in Persia, the lamb would be very likely to be roasted im- perfectly, or underdone, especially in the hurry that must have preceded the exodus (ver. 11). By boiling, again, the integrity of the animal would have been destroyed, partly tlu-ough the fact that it could never have been got into a pot whole, as the Israial- CHA.P. XII. 8, 9. 15 ites had no pots or kettles sufficiently large, and still more through the fact that, in boiling, the substance of the flesh is more or less dissolved. For it is very certain that the command to roast was not founded upon the hurry of the whole procedure, as a whole animal could be quite as quickly boiled as roasted, if not even more quickly, and the Israelites must have possessed the requisite cooking utensils. It was to be roasted, in order that it might be placed upon the table undivided and essentially unchanged. " Through the unity and integrity of the lamb given them to eat, the participants were to be joined into an undivided unity and fellowship with the Lord, who had provided them with the meal" (cf. 1 Cor. x. 17).^ They were to eat it with niSfO (a^vfia, azymipanes; LXX., Vulg.\ i.e. (not sweet, or parched, but) pure loaves, not fermented with leaven ; for leaven, which sets the dough in fermentation, and so produces impurity, was a natural symbol of moral corruption, and was excluded from the sacrifices therefore as defiling (Lev. ii. 11). " Over (upon) hitter herbs they shall eat it." ^"'I'^Pj Trt/cp/Se? (LXX.), lactuccB agrestes (^Vulg.), probably refers to various kinds of bitter herbs. UiKpl^, according to Aristot. Hist. an. 9, 6, and Plin. h. n. 8, 41, is the same as lactuca silveetris, or wild lettuce ; but in Dioscor. 2, 160, it is referred to as the wild aepi^; or Ki')((opiov, i.e. wild endive, the intubus or intubum of the Romans. As lettuce and endive are indigenous in Egypt, and endive is also met with in Syria from the beginning of the winter months to the end of March, and lettuce in April and May, it is to these herbs of bitter flavor that the terra merorim chiefly applies; '* See my Arcliaologie i. p. 386. Baehr (Symb, 2, 635) has given the true explanation : " By avoiding the breaking of the bones, the animal was preserved in complete integrity, undisturbed and entire (Ps. xxxiv. 20). The sacrificial lamb to be eaten was to be thoroughly and perfectly whole, and at the time of eating was to appear as a perfect whole, and therefore as one ; for it is not what is dissected, divided, broken in pieces, but only what is whole, that is eo ipso one. There was no other reason for this, than that all who took part in this one whole animal, i.e. all who ate of it, should look upon themselves as one whole, one community, like those who eat the New Testament Passover, the body of Christ (1 Cor. v. 7), of whom the apostle says (1 Cor. x. 17), " There is one bread, and so we, being many, are one body : for we are all partakers of one body." The preservation of Christ, so that not a bone was broken, had the same signification; and God ordained this that He might appear as the true paschal lamb, that was slain for the sins of the world." 16 THE SECOND BOOK OF MOSES. though others may also be included, as the Arabs apply the same term to Scorzonera orient., Plans scabra, Sonclus oler., Hieracium unijlor., and others (Forsk. /lor. cxviii. and 143) ; and in the Mishnah, Pes. 2, 6, five different varieties of bitter herbs are reckoned as merorim, though it is difficult to determine what they are (cf. Bochart, Hieroz. 1, pp. 691 sqq., and Cels. Hierohot. ii. p. 727). By pV (upon) the bitter herbs are represented, both here and in Num. ix. 11, not as an accompaniment to the meat, but as the basis of the meal. ?V does not signify along with, or indicate accompaniment, not even in chap. xxxv. 22 ; but in this and other similar passages it still retains its primary significa- tion, upon or over. It is only used to signify accompaniment in cases where the ideas of protection, meditation, or addition are prominent. If, then, the bitter herbs are represented in this passage as the basis of the meal, and the unleavened bread also in Num. ix. 11, it is evident that the bitter herbs were not in- tended to be regarded as a savoury accompaniment, by which more flavour was imparted to the sweeter food, but had a more profound signification. The bitter herbs were to call to mind the bitterness of life experienced by Israel in Egypt (i. 14), and this bitterness was to be overpowered by the sweet flesh of the lamb. In the same way the unleavened loaves are regarded as forming part of the substance of the meal in Num. ix. 11, in accordance with their significance in relation to it (vid. ver. 15). There is no discrepancy between this and Deut. xvi. 3, where the mazzoth are spoken of as an accompaniment to the flesh of the sacrifice ; for the allusion there is not to the eating of the paschal lamb, but to sacrificial meals held during the seven days' festival. Ver. 10. The lamb was to be all eaten wherever this was possible ; but if any was left, it was to be burned with fire the following day, — a rule afterwards laid down for all the sacrificial meals, with one solitary exception (vid. Lev. vii. 15). They were to eat it pTSnaj " in anxious flighf (from TSn trepidare, Ps. xxxi. 23; to flee in terror, Deut. xx. 3, 2 Kings vii. 15); in travelling costume therefore, — with " the loins girded^^ that they might not be impeded in their walking by the long flowing dress (2 Kings iv. 29), — with " shoes (sandals) on their feet^^ that they might be ready to walk on hard, rough roads, instead of bare- footed, as they generally went (cf. Josh. ix. 5, 13; Bynoeus de CHAP, XII. 10, 11. 17 calceis ii. 1, 7 ; and Bockart, Hieroz. i. pp. 686 sqq.), and "staff in hand^' (Gen. xxxii. 11). The directions in ver. 11 had reference to the paschal meal in Egypt only, and had no other signification than to prepare the Israelites for their approaching departure. But though " this preparation was intended to give the paschal meal the appearance of a support for the journey, which the Israelites were about to take," this by no means ex- hausts its signification. The divine instructions close with the words, " it is nosi to Jehovah ;" i.e. what is prescribed is a pesach appointed by Jehovah, and to be kept for Him (cf. chap. XX. 10, " -Sabbath to Jehovah ;" xxxii. 5, " feast to Jehovah"). The word nD3, Aram. ^^'PP, Gi\ 'jraa')(a, is derived from npS, lit. to leap or hop, from which these two meanings arise : (1) to limp (1 Kings xviii. 21 ; 2 Sam. iv. 4, etc.) ; and (2) to pass over, trunsire (hence Tiphsah, a passage over, 1 Kings iv. 24). It is for the most part used figuratively for virep^alveiv, to pass by or spare ; as in this case, where the destroying angel passed by the doors and houses of the Israelites that were smeared with blood. From this, pesach (virep^aaii;, Aquil. in ver. 11 ; virep- ^aala, Joseph. Ant. ii. 14, 6) came afterwards to be used for the lamb, through which, according to divine appointment, the passing by or sparing had been effected (vers. 21, 27 ; 2 Chron. XXXV. 1, 13, etc.) ; then for the preparation of the lamb for a meal, in accordance with the divine instructions, or for the cele- bration of this meal (thus here, ver. 11 ; Lev. xxiii. 5 ; Num. ix. 7, etc.) ; and then, lastly, it was transferred to the whole seven days' observance of the feast of unleavened bread, which began with this meal (Deut. xvi. 1), and also to the sacrifices which were to be offered at that feast (Deut. xvi. 2 ; 2 Chron. XXXV. 1, 7, etc.). The killing of the lamb appointed for the pesach was a n3jr, i.e. a slain-offering, as Moses calls it when making known the command of God to the elders (ver. 27) ; consequently the eating of it was a sacrificial feast (" the sacri- fice of the feast of the Passover," chap, xxxiv. 25). For nar is never applied to slaying alone, as £3nK^ is. Even in Prov. xvii. 1 and 1 Sam. xxviii. 24, which Hofmann adduces in sup- port of this meaning, it signifies " to sacrifice" only in a figu- rative or transferred sense. At the first Passover in Egypt, it is true, there was no presentation (3'''iipn), because Israel had no altar there. But "the presentation took place at the very first PENT. — VOL. II- B 18 THE SECOND BOOK OF MOSES. repetition of the festival at Sinai (Num. ix. 7). The omission of this in Egypt, on account of the circumstances in which they were placed, constituted no essential difference between the first " sacrifice of the Passover" and the repetitions of it ; for the choice of the lamb four days before it was slain, was a substi- tute for the presentation, and the sprinkling of the blood, which was essential to every sacrifice, was effected in the smearing of the door-posts and lintel. The other difference upon which Hofmann lays stress, viz. that at all subsequent Passovers the fat of the animal was burned upon the altar, is very question- able. For this custom cannot be proved from the Old Testa- ment, though it is prescribed in the Mishnah} But even if the burning of the fat of the paschal lamb had taken place shortly after the giving of the law, on the ground of the general com- mand in Lev. iii. 17, vii. 23 sqq. (for this is not taken for granted in Ex. xxiii. 18, as we shall afterwards show), this difference could also be accounted for from the want of an altar in Egypt, and would not warrant us in refusing to admit the sacrificial character of the first Passover. For the appointment of the paschal meal by God does not preclude the idea that it was a religious service, nor the want of an altar the idea of sacrifice, as Hofmann supposes. All the sacrifices of the Jewish nation were minutely prescribed by God, so that the presenta- tion of them was the consequence of divine instructions. And even though the Israelites, when holding the first Passover according to the command of God, merely gave expression to their desire to participate in the deliverance from destruction and the redemption from Egypt, and also to their faith in the word and promise of God, we must neither measure the signifi- cation of this divine institution by that fact, nor restrict it to ^ In the elaborate account of the Passover under Josiah, in 2 Chron. XXXV., we have, it is true, an allusion to the presentation of the burnt- offering and fat (ver. 14) ; but the boiling of the offerings in pots, cal- drons, and pans is also mentioned, along with the roasting of the Passover (ver. 13) ; from which it is very obvious, that in this account the offering of burnt and slain-offerings is associated with the preparation of the paschal lamb, and the paschal meal is not specially separated from the sacrificial meals of the seven days' feast; just as we find that the king and the princes give the priests and Levites not only lambs and kids, but oxen also, for the Bacrifices and sacrificial meals of this festival. (See my Archdologie, § 81, 8). CHAP. XII. 12-14. 19 this alone, inasmuch as it is expressly described as a sacrificial meal. In vers. 12 and 13 the name pesach is explained. In that night Jehovah would pass through Egypt, smite all the first-born of man and beast, execute judgment upon all the gods of Egypt, and 'pass over (l^ps) the Israelites. In what the judgment upon all the gods of Egypt consisted, it is hard to determine. The meaning of these words is not exhausted by Calvin's remark : " God declared that He would be a judge against the false gods, because it was most apparent then, how little help was to be found in them, and how vain and fallacious was their worship." The gods of Egypt were spiritual authorities and powers, hao- fiovia, which governed the life and spirit of the Egyptians. Hence the judgment upon them could not consist of the destruc- tion of idols, as Ps. JonatIiaii!s paraphrase supposes : idola fusa colliquescenty lapidea concidentur, testacea confringentur, lignea in cinerem redigentur. For there is nothing said about this ; but in ver. 29 the death of the first-born of men and cattle alone is mentioned as the execution of the divine threat ; and in Num. xxxiii. 4 also the judgment upon the gods is connected with the burial of the first-born, without special reference to anything besides. From this it seems to follow pretty certainly, that the judgments upon the gods of Egypt consisted in the slaying of the first-born of man and beast. But the slaying of the first- born was a judgment upon the gods, not only because the impo- tence and worthlessness of the fancied gods were displayed in the consternation produced by this stroke, but still more dii'ectly in the fact, that in the slaying of the king's son and many of the first-born animals, the gods of Egypt, which were worshipped both in their kings and also in certain sacred animals, such as the bull Apis and the goat Nendes, were actually smitten them- selves.— Yer. 13. To the Israelites, on the other hand, the blood upon the houses in which they were assembled would be a sign and pledge that Jehovah would spare them, and no plague should fall upon them to destroy (cf. Ezek. xxi. 36 ; not " for the destroyer," for there is no article with HTiK^bp). — Yer. 14. That day (the evening of the 14th) Israel was to keep ^^ for a commemoration as a feast to Jehovali^^ consecrated for all time, as an " eternal ordinance,^ ^^^^^"^f " in your generations,^^ i.e. for all ages, HhM denoting the succession of future generations [vid. 20 THE SECOND BOOK OF MOSES. ver. 24). As the divine act of Israel's redemption was of eter- nal significance, so the commemoration of that act was to be an eternal ordinance, and to be upheld as long as Israel should exist as the redeemed people of the Lord, i.e. to all eternity, just as the new life of the redeemed was to endure for ever. For the Passover, the remembrance of which was to be revived by the constant repetition of the feast, was the celebration of their birth into the new life of fellowship with the Lord. The pre- servation from the stroke of the destroyer, from which the feast received its name, was the commencement of their redemption from the bondage of Egypt, and their elevation into the nation of Jehovah. The blood of the paschal lamb was atoning blood ; for the Passover was a sacrifice, which combined in itself the signification of the future sin-offerings and peace-offerings ; in other words, which shadowed forth both expiation and quicken- ing fellowship with God. The smearing of the houses of the Israelites with the atoning blood of the sacrifice set forth the reconciliation of Israel and its God, through the forgiveness and expiation of its sins ; and in the sacrificial meal which fol- lowed, their communion with the Lord, i.e. their adoption as children of God, was typically completed. In the meal the sacrificium became a sacramentum, the flesh of the sacrifice a means of grace, by which the Lord adopted His spared and redeemed people into the fellowship of His house, and gave them food for the refreshing of their souls. Vers. 15-20. Judging from the words " / hrouglit out" in ver. 17, Moses did not receive instructions respecting the seven days feast of Mazzoth till after the exodus from Egypt ; but on account of its internal and substantial connection with the Passover, it is placed here in immediate association with the institution of the paschal meal. " Seven days shall ye eat un- leavened bread, only (^X) on the first day (i.e. not later than the first day) ye shall cause to cease (i.e. put away) leaven out of your houses." The first day was the 15th of the month (cf. Lev. xxiii. 6 ; Num. xxviii. 17). On the other hand, when jiK'K'ia is thus defined in ver. 18, " on the 14th day of the month at even," this may be accounted for from the close connection between the feast of Mazzoth and the feast of Passover, inas- much as unleavened bread was to be eaten with the paschal lamb, so that the leaven had to be cleared away before this meal. CHAP. XIL 15-20. 21 The significance of this feast was in the eating of the mazzoth, i.e. of pure unleavened bread (see ver. 8). As bread, which is the principal means of preserving life, might easily be regarded as the symbol of life itself, so far as the latter is set forth in the means employed for its own maintenance and invigoration, so the mazzoth, or unleavened loaves, were symbolical of the new life, as cleansed from the leaven of a sinful nature. But if the eating of mazzoth was to shadow forth the new life into which Israel was transferred, any one who ate leavened bread at the feast would renounce this new life, and was therefore to be cut off from Israel, i.e. " from the congregation of Israel" (ver. 19). — Ver. 16. On the first and seventh days, a holy meeting was to be held, and labour to be suspended. tinp"Nlip?p is not indictio sancti, proclamatio sanctitatis {yitringa\ but a holy assembly^ i.e. a meeting of the people for the worship of Jehovah (Ezek. xlvi. 3, 9). *^'3i?P, from &5^i^ to call, is that which is called, i.e. the assembly (Isa. iv. 5 ; Neh. viii. 8). No work was to be done upon these days, except what was necessary for the preparation of food ; on the Sabbath, even this was prohibited (chap. xxxv. 2, 3). Hence in Lev. xxiii. 7, the " work" is called " servile work," ordinary handicraft. — Ver. 17. " Observe the Mazzoth''^ (i.e. the directions given in vers. 15 and 16 respecting the feast of Mazzoth), " for on this very day I have brought your armies out of the latid of Egypt" This was effected in the night of the 14th-15th, or rather at midnight, and therefore in the eai^ly morning of the 15th Abib. Because Jehovah had brought Israel out of Egypt on the 15th Abib, therefore Israel was to keep Mazzoth for seven days. Of course it was not merely a commemoration of this event, but the exodus formed the ground- work of the seven days' feast, because it was by this that Israel had been introduced into a new vital element. For this reason the Israelites were to put away all the leaven of their Egyptian nature, the leaven of malice and wickedness (1 Cor. v. 8), and by eating pure and holy bread, and meeting for the worship of God, to show that they were walking in newness of life. This aspect of the feast will serve to explain the repeated emphasis laid upon the instructions given concerning it, and the repeated threat of extermination against either native or foreigner, in case the law should be disobeyed (vers. 18-20). To eat leavened bread at this feast, would have been a denial of the divine act. 22 THE SECOND BOOK OF MOSES. by which Israel was introduced into the new life of fellowship with Jehovah. "I3, a stranger, was a non-Israelite who lived for a time, or possibly for his whole life, in the midst of the Israel- itish nation, but without being incorporated into it by circumci- sion. T]^^ ^y.^, a tree that grows upon the soil in which it was planted ; hence indigena, the native of a country. This term was applied to the Israelites, " because they had sprung from Isaac and Jacob, who were born in the land of Canaan, and had received it from God as a permanent settlement" {Clericu-s). The feast of Mazzoth, the commemoration of Israel's creation as the people of Jehovah (Isa. xliii. 15-17), was fixed for seven days, to stamp upon it in the number seven the seal of the cove- nant relationship. This heptad of days was made holy througli the sanctification of the first and last days by the holding of a holy assembly, and the entire suspension of work. The begin- ning and the end comprehended the whole. In the eating of unleavened bread Israel laboured for meat for the new life (John vi. 27), whilst the seal of worship was impressed upon this new life in the holy convocation, and the suspension of labour was the symbol of rest in the Lord. Vers. 21-28. Of the directions given by Moses to the elders of the nation, the leading points only are mentioned here, viz. the slaying of the lamb and the application of the blood (vers. 21, 22). The reason for this is then explained in ver. 23, and the rule laid down in vers. 24-27 for its observance in the future. — Ver. 21. " Withdraw and take :" '^^'^ is intransitive here, to draw away, withdraw, as in Judg. iv. 6, v. 14, xx. 37. 3iTX JTnJK : a bunch or bundle of hyssop : according to Maimo- nides, " quantum quis comprehendit manu sua^ 2iTK (yaaoyiro^) was probably not the plant which we call hyssop, the hyssopus ojfficinalis, for it is uncertain whether this is to be found in Syria and Arabia, but a species of origanum resembling hyssop, the Arabian zdter, either wild marjoram or a kind of thyme. Thymus serpyllum, mentioned in Forsh. flora Aeg. p. 107, which is very common in Syria and Arabia, and is called zdter, or zatureya, the pepper or bean plant. " That is in the bason ;" viz. the bason in which the blood had been caught when the animal was killed. CJ^Viini, " and let it reach to, i.e. strike, the lintel ;" in ordinary purifications the blood was sprinkled with the bunch of hyssop (Lev. xiv. 51 ; Num. xix. 18). The reason CHAP. XII. 29-36. 23 for the command not to go out of the door of the house was, that in this night of judgment there would he no safety any- where except behind the blood-stained door. — ^Ver. 23 (cf. ver. 13). " He will not suffer (IJj)';) the destroyer to come into your houses ;" Jehovah effected the destruction of the first-born through JV^pipn^ the destroyer, or destroying angel, o okoOpevcov (Heb. xi. 28), i.e. not a fallen angel, but the angel of Jehovah, in whom Jehovah revealed Himself to the patriarchs and Moses. This is not at variance with Ps. Ixxviii. 49 ; for the writer of this psalm regards not only the slaying of the first-born, but also the pestilence (Ex. ix. 1-7), as effected through the medium of angels of evil : though, according to the analogy of 1 Sam. xiii. 17, TTTi^Jsn might certainly be understood collectively as applying to a company of angels. Ver. 24. " This word" i.e. the instruc- tions respecting the Pass^over, they were to regard as an institu- tion for themselves and their children for ever (D?ij;~iy in the same sense as Q^iy, Gen. xvii. 7, 13) ; and when dwelling in the promised land, they were to explain the meaning of this service to their sons. The ceremony is called >^1^V., " service," inasmuch as it was the fulfilment of a divine command, a performance demanded by God, though it promoted the good of Israel. — Yer. 27. After hearing the divine instructions, the people, represented by their elders, bowed and worshipped ; not only to show their faith, but also to manifest their gratitude for the deliverance which they were to receive in the Passover. — Yer. 28. They then proceeded to execute the command, that through the obedience of faith they might appropriate the blessing of this " service." Yers. 29-36. Death: of the Fiest-born, and release OF Israel. — The last blow announced to Pharaoh took place in " the half of the night," i.e. at midnight, when all Egypt was lying in deep sleep (Matt. xxv. 5, 6), to startle the king and his people out of their sleep of sin. As all the previous plagues rested upon a natural basis, it might seem a probable supposition that this was also the case here, whilst the analogy of 2 Sam. xxiv. 15, 16 might lead us to think of a pestilence as the means employed by the destroying angel. In that case we should find the heightening of the natural occurrence into a miracle in the fact, that the first-born both "of man and beast, and they alone, 24 THE SECOND BOOK OF MOSES. were all suddenly slain, whilst the Israelites remained uninjured in their houses. This view would be favoured, too, by the cir- cumstance, that not only are pestilences of frequent occurrence in Egypt, but they are most fatal in the spring months. On a closer examination, however, the circumstances mentioned tell against rather than in favour of such a supposition. In 2 Sam. xxiv. 15, the pestilence is expressly alluded to ; here it is not. The previous plagues were nearly all brought upon Egypt by Moses' staff, and with most of them the natural sources are dis- tinctly mentioned ; but the last plague came direct from Jehovah without the intervention of Moses, certainly for no other reason than to make it apparent that it was a purely supernatural pun- ishment inflicted by His own omnipotence. The words, " There was not a house where there was not one dead" are to be taken literally, and not merely "as a general expression;" though, of course, they are to be limited, according to the context, to all the houses in which there were first-born of man or beast. The term " first-born" is not to be extended so far, however, as to include even heads of families who had children of their own, in which case there might be houses, as Lapide and others suppose, where the grandfather, the father, the son, and tlie wives were all lying dead, provided all of them were first-born. The words, " From the son of Pharaoh, who will sit upon his throne, to the son of the prisoners in the prison" (ver. 29 compared with chap. xiii. 15), point unquestionably to those first-born sons alone who were not yet fathers themselves. But even with this limitation the blow was so terrible, that the effect produced upon Pharaoh and his people is perfectly intelligible. Ver. 30. The very same night Pharaoh sent for !Moses and Aaron, and gave, them permission to depart with their people, their children, and their cattle. The statement that Pharaoh sent for Moses and Aaron is not at variance with chap. x. 28, 29 ; and there is no necessity to resort to Calvin s explanation, " Pharaoh himself is said to have sent for those whom he urged to depart through the medium of messengers from the palace." The command never to appear in his sight again did not pre- clude his sending for them under totally different circum- stances. The permission to depart was given unconditionally, i.e. without involving an obligation to return. This is evident from the words, " Get you forth from among my people," com- CHAP. XII. 33. 25 pared with chap. x. 8, 24, " Go ye, serve Jehovah," and viii. 25, " Go ye, sacrifice to your God in the land." If in addition to this we bear in mind, that although at first, and even after the fourth plague (chap. viii. 27), Moses only asked for a three days' journey to hold a festival, yet Pharaoh suspected that they would depart altogether, and even gave utterance to this suspi- cion, without being contradicted by Moses (chap. viii. 28, and x. 10) ; the words " Get you forth from among my people" can- not mean anything else than " depart altogether." Moreover, in chap. xi. 1 it was foretold to Moses that the result of the last blow would be, that Pharaoh would let them go, or rather drive them away ; so that the effect of this blow, as here described, cannot be understood in any other way. And this is really im- plied in Pharaoh's last words, " Go, and bless me also;" whereas on former occasions he had only asked them to intercede for the removal of the plagues (chap. viii. 8, 28, ix. 28, x. 17). '^^3, to bless, indicates a final leave-taking, and was equivalent to a re- quest that on their departure they would secure or leave behind the blessing of their God, in order that henceforth no such plague might ever befall him and his people. This view of the words of the king is not at variance either with the expression " as ye have said" in ver. 31, which refers to the words " serve the Lord," or with the same words in ver. 32, for there they refer to the flock and herds, or lastly, with the circumstance that Pharaoh pursued the Israelites after they had gone, with the evi- dent intention of bringing them back by force (chap. xiv. 5 sqq.), because this resolution is expressly described as a change of mind consequent upon renewed hardening (chap. xiv. 4, 5). Ver. 33. " And Egypt urged the people strongly (^V pfn to press hard, Kare^id^ovTo, LXX.) to make haste, to send them out of the land;^' i.e. the Egyptians urged the Israelites to accelerate their departure, "for they said (sc. to themselves), We are all dead" i.e. exposed to death. So great was their alarm at the death of the first-born. — Ver. 34. This urgency of the Egyptians com- pelled the Israelites to take the dough, which they were probably about to bake for their journey, before it was leavened, and also their kneading-troughs bound up in their clothes (cloths) upon their shoulders. '1?pb>, IfiaTiov, was a large square piece of stuff or cloth, worn above the under-clothes, and could be easily used for tying up different things together. The Israelites had in- 26 THE SECOND BOOK OF MOSES. tended to leaven the dough, therefore, as the command to eat unleavened bread for seven days had not been given to them yet. But under the pressure of necessity they were obliged to content themselves with unleavened bread, or, as it is called in Deut. xvi. 3, " the bread of affliction," during the first days of their journey. But as the troubles connected with their de- parture from Egypt were merely the introduction to the new life of liberty and grace, so according to the counsel of God the bread of affliction was to become a holy food to Israel ; the days of their exodus being exalted by the Lord into a seven days' feast, in which the people of Jehovah were to commemorate to all ages their deliverance from the oppression of Egypt. The Ions-continued eatino; of unleavened bread, on account of the pressure of circumstances, formed the historical preparation for the seven days' feast of Mazzoth, which was instituted afterwards. Hence this circumstance is mentioned both here and in ver. 39. On vers. 35 and 36, see chap. iii. 21, 22. Vers. 37—42. Departure of the children of Israel out of Egypt. — The starting-point was Baemses, from which they proceeded to Succoth (ver. 37), thence to Etham at the end of the desert (chap, xiii. 20), and from that by a curve to Hachiroth, opposite to the Red Sea, from which point they passed through the sea (chap. xiv. 2, 21 sqq.). Now, if we take these words simply as they stand, Israel touched the border of the desert of Arabia by the second day, and on the third day reached the plain of Suez and the Red Sea. But they could not possibly have gone so far, if Raemses stood upon the site of the modern Belheis. For though the distance from Belheis to Suez by the direct road past Rejum el Khail is only a little more than 15 geographical miles, and a caravan with camels could make the journey in two days, this would be quite impossible for a whole nation travelling with wives, children, cattle, and baggage. Such a procession could never have reached Etham, on the border of the desert, on their second day's march, and then on the third day, by a circuitous course " of about a day's march in extent," have arrived at the plain of Suez between Ajirud and the sea. This is admitted by Kurtz, who therefore follows v. Raumer in making a distinction between a stage and a day's journey, on the ground that ypo signifies the station or place of encampment, and not a day's journey. But the word neither means station nor place of en CHAP. Xn. 37-42. 27 campment. It is derived from J/D3 to tear out (sc. the pegs of the tent), hence to take down the tent ; and denotes removal from the place of encampment, and the subsequent march (cf. Num. xxxiii. 1). Such a march might indeed embrace more than a day's journey; but whenever the Israelites travelled more than a day before pitching their tents, it is expressly mentioned (cf.Num. X. 33, and xxxiii. 8, with Ex. xv. 22). These passages show very clearly that the stages from Eaemses to Succoth, thence to Etham, and then again to Hachiroth, were a day's march each. The only question is, whether they only rested for one night at each of these places. The circumstances under which the Is- raelites took their departure favour the supposition, that they would get out of the Egyptian territory as quickly as possible, and rest no longer than was absolutely necessary; but the gathering of the whole nation, which was not collected together in one spot, as in a camp, at the time of their departure, and still more the confusion, and interruptions of various kinds, that would inevitably attend the migration of a whole nation, render it probable that they rested longer than one night at each of the places named. This would explain most simply, how Pharaoh was able to overtake them with his army at Hachiroth. But whatever our views on this point may be, so much is certain, that Israel could not have reached the plain of Suez in a three days' march from Belbeis with the circuitous route by Etham, and therefore that their starting-point cannot have been Belbeis, but must have been in the neighbourhood of Heroopolis ; and there are other things that favour this conclusion. There is, first, the circumstance that Pharaoh sent for INIoses the very same night after the slaying of the first-born, and told him to depart. Now the Pentateuch does not mention Pharaoh's place of abode, but according to Ps. Ixxviii. 12 it was Zoan, i.e. Tanis, on the eastern bank of the Tanitic arm of the Nile. Abu Keishih (or Heroopolis) is only half as far from Tanis as Belbeis, and the possibility of Moses appearing before the king and returning to his own people between midnight and the morning is perfectly conceivable, on the supposition that Moses was not in Heroopolis itself, but was staying in a more northerly place, with the expec- tation that Pharaoh would send a message to him, or send for him, after the final blow. Again, Ahu Keishih was on the way to Gaza; so that the Israelites might take the road towards the 28 THE SECOND BOOK OF MOSES. country of the Philistines, and then, as this was not the road they were to take, turn round at God's command by the road to the desert (chap. xiii. 17, 18). Lastly, Etham could be reached in two days from the starting-point named.^ On the situation of Succoth and EtJiam, see chap. xiii. 20. The Israelites departed, " about 600,000 on foot that were men." yJ"] (as in Num. xi. 21, the infantry of an army) is added, because they went out as an army (ver. 41), and none are num- bered but those who could bear arms, from 20 years old and upwards ; and ni''')3an because of ^It^p 1??, " beside the little ones,'^ which follows. ^^ is used here in its broader sense, as in Gen. xlvii. 12, Num. xxxii. 16, 24, and applies to the entire family, including the wife and children, who did not travel on foot, but on beasts of burden and in carriages (Gen. xxxi. 17). The number given is an approximative one. The numbering at Sinai gave 603,550 males of 20 years old and upwards (Num. i. 46), and 22,000 male Levites of a month old and upwards (Num. iii. 39). Now if we add the wives and children, the total number of the people may have been about two million souls. The multiplication of the seventy souls, who went down with Jacob to Egypt, into this vast multitude, is not so dispropor- tionate to the 430 years of their sojourn there, as to render it at all necessary to assume that the numbers given included not only the descendants of the seventy souls who went down with Jacob, but also those of " several thousand man-servants and maid-servants" who accompanied them. For, apart from the fact, that we are not warranted in concluding, that because Abraham had 318 fighting servants, the twelve sons of Jacob had several thousand, and took them with them into Egypt ; even if the servants had been received into the religious fellow- ship of Israel by circumcision, they cannot have reckoned among the 600,000 who went out, for the simple reason that they are not included in the seventy souls who went down to Egypt ; and in chap. i. 5 the number of those who came out is placed in unmistakeable connection with the number of those who went in. If we deduct from the 70 souls the patriarch Jacob, his 12 sons, Dinah, Asher's daughter Zerah, the three ^ The different views as to the march of the Israelites from Raemses to their passage through the sea, are to be found in the Studien und Kritiken, 1850, pp. 328 sqq., and in Kurtz, ii. pp. 361 sqq. CHAP. XII. 37-42. f 29 sons of Levi, the four grandsons of Judah and Benjamin, and those grandsons of Jacob who probably died without leaving any male posterity, since their descendants are not mentioned among the families of Israel (cf. i. 372), there remain 41 grand- sons of Jacob who founded families, in addition to the Levites. Now, if we follow 1 Chron. vii. 20 sqq., where ten or eleven generations are mentioned between Ephraim and Joshua, and reckon 40 years as a generation, the tenth generation of the 41 grandsons of Jacob would be born about the year 400 of the sojourn in Egypt, and therefore be over 20 years of age at the time of the exodus. Let us assume, that on an average there were three sons and three daughters to every married couple in the first six of these generations, two sons and two daughters in the last four, and we shall find, that in the tenth generation there would be 478,224 sons about the 400th year of the sojourn in Egypt, who would therefore be above 20 years of age at the time of the exodus, whilst 125,326 men of the ninth generation would be still living, so that there would be 478,224 + 125,326, or 603,550 men coming out of Egypt, who were more than 20 years old. But though our calculation is based upon no more than the ordinary number of births, a special blessing from God is to be discerned not only in this fruitfulness, which we suppose to have been uninterrupted, but still more in the fact, that the presumed number of children continued alive, and begot the same number of children themselves ; and the divine grace was peculiarly manifest in the fact, that neither pestilence nor other evils, nor even the measures adopted by the Pharaohs for the suppression of Israel, could diminish their numbers or restrain their increase. If the question be asked, how the land of Goshen could sustain so large a number, especially as the Israelites were not the only inhabitants, but lived along with Egyptians there, it is a sufficient reply, that according to both ancient and modern testimony (cf. Robinson, Pal. i. p. 78), this is the most fertile province in all Egypt, and that we are not so well acquainted with the extent of the territory inhabited by the Israelites, as to be able to estimate the amount of its produce. Ver. 38. In typical fulfilment of the promise in Gen. xii. 3, and no doubt induced by the sigr? in Num. xi. 4, a medley, or crowd of people of different nations. According to Deut. xxix. 10, they seem to have occupied a very low position among the Israelites, and to have furnished the nation of God with hewers of wood and drawers of water. — On ver. 39, see ver. 34. — Vers. 40, 41. The sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt had lasted 430 years. This number is not critically doubtful, nor ai«e the 430 years to be reduced to 215 by an arbitrary interpolation, sucli as we find in the LXX., r} he KaroiK7](np'^ to observe, to honour" (^Knohel), but " preservation," from "i^K^ to keep, to preserve ; and niiT'p is the same as in ver. 27. " This same night is (consecrated) to the Lord as a preservation for all children of Israel in their families. ^^ Because Jehovah had pre- served the children of Israel that night from the destroyer, it was to be holy to them, i.e. to be kept by them in all future ages to the glory of the Lord, as a preservation. Vers. 43-50. Regulations concerning the Partici PANTS IN THE Passover. — These regulations, which were supplementary to the law of the Passover in vers. 3-11, were not communicated before the exodus ; because it was only by the fact that a crowd of foreigners attached themselves to the Israelites, that Israel was brought into a connection with foreign- ers, which needed to be clearly defined, especially so far as the Passover was concerned, the festival of Israel's birth as the people of God. If the Passover was still to retain this sig- nification, of course no foreigner could participate in it. This is the first regulation. But as it was by virtue of a divine call, and not through natural descent, that Israel had become the people of Jehovah, and as it was destined in that capacity to be a blessing to all nations, the attitude assumed towards foreigners was not to be an altogether repelling one. Hence the further directions in ver. 44 : purchased servants, who had been politi- cally incorporated as Israel's property, were to be entirely in- corporated by circumcision, so as even to take part in the the patriarchs in Gen. v. and xi. The view held by the Seventy became traditional in the synagogue, and the Apostle Paul followed it in Gal. iii. 17, where he reckoned the interval between the promise to Abraham and the giving of the law as 430 years, the question of chronological exactness having no bearing upon his subject at the time. 32 THE SECOND BOOK OF MOSES. Passover. But settlers, and servants working for wages, were not to eat of it, for they stood in a purely external relation, which might be any day dissolved. 3 73Kj Ut. to eat at anything, to take part in the eating (Lev. xxii. 11). The deeper ground for this was, that in this meal Israel was to preserve and celebrate its unity and fellowship with Jehovah. This was the meaning of the regulations, which were repeated in vers. 46 and 47 from vers. 4, 9, and 10, where they had been already explained. If, therefore, a foreigner living among the Israelites wished to keep the Passover, he was first of all to be spiritually incorporated into the nation of Jehovah by circumcision (ver. 48). 'DS TWVf\ : " And he has made (i.e. made ready) a passover to Jehovah, let every male he circumcised to him (i.e. he himself, and the male members of his house), and then he may draw near (sc. to Jeho- vah) to keep it." The first nb'V denotes the wish or intention 'to do it, the second, the actual execution of the wish. The words ""^ri?) "'?.? ^^^, and 1''3b>, are all indicative of non-Israelites, "^^n? was applied quite generally to any foreigner springing from another nation ; ^3 was a foreigner living for a shorter or longer time in the midst of the Israelites ; 3^0, Ut. a dweller, settler, was one who settled permanently among the Israelites, without being received into their religious fellowship ; 1''3b' was the non-Israelite, who worked for an Israelite for wages. — Ver. 49. There was one law with reference to the Passover which was applicable both to the native and the foreigner : no uncir- cumcised man was to be allowed to eat of it. — Ver. 50 closes the instructions concerning the Passover with the statement that the Israelites carried them out, viz. in after times (e.g. Num. ix. 5) ; and in ver. 51 the account of the exodus from Egypt is also brought to a close. All that Jehovah promised to Moses in chap. vi. 6 and 26 had now been fulfilled. But although ver. 51 is a concluding formula, and so belongs to the account just closed, Ahenezra was so far right in wishing to connect this verse with the commencement of the following chapter, that such con- cluding formulae generally serve to link together the different incidents, and therefore not only wind up what goes before, but introduce what has yet to come. Chap. xiii. 1-16. Sanctification of the First-born, and Promulgation of the Law for the Feast of Mazzoth. CHAP. XIII. 1-16. 33 — Yers. 1, 2. The sanctification of the first-born was closely connected with the Passover. By this the deliverance of the Israelitish first-born was effected, and the object of this deliver- ance was their sanctification. Because Jehovah had delivered the first-born of Israel, they were to be sanctified to Him. If the Israelites completed their communion with Jehovah in the Passover, and celebrated the commencement of their divine standing in the feast of unleavened bread, they gave uninter- rupted effect to their divine sonship in the sanctification of the first-born. For this reason, probably, the sanctification of the first-born was commanded by Jehovah at Succoth, immediatelv after the exodus, and contemporaneously with the institution of the seven days' feast of Mazzoth (cf. chap. ii. 15), so that the place assigned it in the historical record is the correct one; whereas the divine appointment of the feast of Mazzoth had been men- tioned before (chap. xii. 15 sqq.), and the communication of that appointment to the people was all that remained to be mentioned here. — Ver. 2. Every first-born of man and beast was to be sanctified to Jehovah, i.e. given up to Him for His service. As the expression, " all the first-born," applied to both man and beast, the explanation is added, " everything that opens the womb among the Israelites, of man and beast.'' Dr]'i~?3 "itDS for "itSB"?!) tiVn (ver. 12) : ?3 is placed like an adjective after the noun, as in Num. viii. 16, ^'^ 1133 for li33"P3j Biavolyov iraaav fxrjTpav for irav Biavoiyov firjTpav (ver. 12, LXX.). Kin v : " it is Mine" it belongs to Me. This right to the first-born was not founded upon the fact, that " Jehovah was the Lord and Creator of all things, and as every created object owed its life to Him, to Him should its life be entirely devoted," as Kurtz maintains, though without scriptural proof ; but in Num. iii. 13 and viii. 17 the ground of the claim is expressly mentioned, viz. that on the day when Je- hovah smote all the first-born of Egypt, He sanctified to Him- self all the first-born of the Israelites, both of man and beast. Hence the sanctification of the first-born rested not upon the deliverance of the first-born sons from the stroke of the destroyer through the atoning blood of the paschal lamb, but upon the fact that God sanctified them for Himself at that time, and therefore delivered them. But Jehovah sanctified the first-born of Israel to Himself by adopting Israel as His first-born son (chap. iv. 22), or as His possession. Because Israel had been chosen PENT. — VOL. II. C 34 THE SECOND BOOK OF MOSES. as the natio.n of Jehovah, its first-born of man and beast were spared, and for that reason they were henceforth to be sanctified to Jehovah. In what way, is more clearly defined in vers. 12 sqq. Vers. 3-10. The directions as to the seven days' feast of unleavened bread (chap. xii. 15-20) were made known by Moses to the people on the day of the exodus, at the first station, namely, Succoth ; but in the account of this, only the most im- portant points are repeated, and the yearly commemoration is enjoined. In ver. 3, Egypt is called a " slave-house^^ inasmuch as Israel was employed in slave-labour there, and treated as a slave population (cf. chap. xx. 2 ; Deut. v. 6, vi. 12, etc.). 1^ Vfp ^^ strength of handy' in vers. 3, 14, and 16, is more emphatic than the more usual "^iJTni^ (chap. iii. 19, etc.). — On ver. 5, see chap. iii. 8, and xii. 25. In ver. 6, the term ^^ feast to Jehovah^' points to the keeping of the seventh day by a holy convocation and the suspension of work (chap. xii. 16). It is only of the seventh day that this is expressly stated, because it was under- stood as a matter of course that the first was a feast of Jehovah. — Ver. 8. ^^ Because of that which Jehovah did to me" (i^J in a relative sense, is qui, for "IK'S, see Eioald, § 331) : sc. " I eat un- leavened bread," or, " I observe this service." This completion of the imperfect sentence follows readily from the context, and the whole verse may be explained from chap. xii. 26, 27. — ^Ver. 9. The festival prescribed was to be to Israel "for a sign upon its hand, and for a memorial between the eyes." These words presuppose the custom of wearing mnemonic signs upon the hand and fore- head ; but they are not to be traced to the heathen custom of branding soldiers and slaves with marks upon the hand and fore- head. For the parallel passages in Deut. vi. 8 and xi. 18, " bind them for a sign upon your hand," are proofs that the allusion is neither to branding nor writing on the hand. Hence the sign upon the hand probably consisted of a bracelet round the wrist, and the ziccaron between the eyes, of a band worn upon the fore- head. The words are then used figuratively, as a proverbial expression employed to give emphasis to the injunction to bear this precept continually in mind, to be always mindful to observe it. This is still more apparent from the reason assigned, " that the law of Jehovah may be in thy mouth" For it was not by mnemonic slips upon the hand and forehead that a law was so placed in the mouth as to be talked of continually (Deut. vi. 7, CHAP. xni. 1-16. 35 xi. 19), but by the reception of it into the heart and its continual fulfilment. (See also ver. 16.) As the origin and meaning of the festival were to be talked of in connection with the eating of unleavened bread, so conversation about the law of Jehovah was introduced at the same time, and the obligation to keep it re- newed and brought vividly to mind. — ^Ver. 10. This ordinance the Israelites were to keep rHV^u?^ " at its appointed time" (i.e. from the 15th to the 21st Abib), — "from days to days," i.e. as often as the days returned, therefore from year to year (cf. Judg. xi. 40, xxi. 19 ; 1 Sam. i. 3, ii. 19). In vers. 11-16, Moses communicated to the people the law briefly noticed in ver. 2, respecting the sanctifieation of the first- born. This law was to come into force when Israel had taken possession of the promised land. Then everything which opened the womb was to be given up to the Lord, nin""? l"'3Vn : to cause to pass over to Jehovah, to consecrate or give up to Him as a sacrifice (cf. Lev. xviii. 21). In "all that openeth the womb" the first-born of both man and beast are included (ver. 2). This general expression is then particularized in three clauses, com- mencing with ?b"i : (a) nnna cattle, i.e. oxen, sheep, and goats, as clean domestic animals, but only the males ; (b) asses, as the most common of the unclean domestic animals, instead of the whole of these animals. Num. xviii. 15; (c) ihe first-horn of the children of Israel. The female first-born of man and beast were exempted from consecration. Of the clean animals the first- born male ("1^53 abbreviated from Onn ntiB, and 1J^ from the Chaldee "^^y^ to throw, the dropped young one) was to belong to Jehovah, i.e. to be sacrificed to Him (ver. 15, and Num. xviii. 17). This law is still further explained in chap. xxii. 29, where it is stated that the sacrificing was not to take place till the eighth day after the birth; and in Deut. xv. 21, 22, it is still further modified by the command, that an animal which had any fault, and was either blind or lame, was not to be sacrificed, but to be slain and eaten at home, like other edible animals. These two rules sprang out of the general instructions concerning the sacri- ficial animals. The first-born of the ass was to be redeemed with a male lamb or kid (nK>, as at chap. xii. 3) ; and if not re- deemed, it was to be killed. Kl^i : from ^JV the nape, to break the neck (Deut. xxi. 4, 6). The first-born sons of Israel were also to be consecrated to Jehovah as a sacrifice ; not indeed in 36 THE SECO^^) book of moses. the manner of the heathen, by slaying and burning upon the ahar, but by presenting them to the Lord as living sacrifices, devoting all their powers of body and mind to His service. In- asmuch as the first birth represented all the births, the whole nation was to consecrate itself to Jehovah, and present itself as a priestly nation in the consecration of the first-born. But since this consecration had its foundation, not in nature, but in the grace of its call, the sanctification of the first birth cannot be deduced from the separation of the first-born to the priesthood. This view, which was very prevalent among early writers, has been thoroughly overthrown by Outram (de Sacrif. 1, c. 4) and Vitringa (obserw. ii. c. 2, pp. 272 sqq.). As the priestly character of the nation did not give a title in itself to the administration of the priesthood within the theocracy, so the first-born were not eo ipso chosen as priests through their consecration to Jehovah. In what way they were to consecrate their life to the Lord, de- pended upon the appointment of the Lord, which was, that they were to perform the non-priestly work of the sanctuary, to be servants of the priests in their holy service. Even this work was afterwards transferred to the Levites (Num. iii.). At the same time the obligation was imposed upon the people to redeem their first-born sons from the service which was binding upon them, but was now transferred to the Levites, who were substi- tuted for them ; in other words, to pay five shekels of silver per head to the priesthood (Num. iii. 47, xviii. 16). In anticipation of this arrangement, which was to be introduced afterwards, the redemption ("^JSi) of the male first-born is already established here. — On ver. 14, see chap. xii. 26. "iHO : to-morrow, for the future generally, as in Gen. xxx. 33. nNPno: what does this mean ? quid sibi vult hoc prceceptum ac primogenitura (Jonathan). — Ver. 15. ^3np^p n^ipn: "he made hard" (sc. his heart, cf. chap, vii. 3) " to let us go" The sanctification of the first-born is en- forced in ver. 16 in the same terms as the keeping of the feast of Mazzoth in ver, 9, with this exception, that instead of P"i3T? we have nbDiD^, as in Deut. vi. 8, and xi. 18. The word nb^iD sig- nifies neither amulet nor arlyfiaTa, but " binding" or head- bands, as is evident from the Chaldee XDtiiD armlet (2 Sam. i. 10), NnptDiD tiara (Esth. viii. 15 ; EzekV xxiv. 17, 23). This command was interpreted literally by the Talmudists, and the use of tephillimj phylacteries (Matt, xxiii. 5), founded upon CHAP. XIII. 1-16. 37 it ;^ the Caraites, on the contrary, interpreted it figuratively, as a proverbial expression for constant reflection upon, and fulfilment of, the divine commands. The correctness of the latter is obvi- ous from the words themselves, which do not say that the com- mands are to be written upon scrolls, but only that they are to be to the Israelites for signs upon the hand, and for bands be- tween the eyes, i.e. they are to be kept in view like memorials upon the forehead and the hand. The expression in Deut. vi. 8, " Thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes," does not point at all to the symbolizing of the divine commands by an outward sign to oe worn upon the hand, or to bands with passages of the law in- scribed upon them, to be worn on the forehead between the eyes ; nor does the " advance in Deut. vi. 8 from heart to word, and from word to hand or act," necessarily lead to the peculiar no- tion of Schultz, that "the sleeve and turban were to be used as reminders of the divine commands, the former by being fastened to the hand in a peculiar way, the latter by an end being brought down upon the forehead." The line of thought referred to merely expresses the idea, that the Israelites were not only to retain the commands of God in their hearts, and to confess them with the mouth, but to fulfil them with the hand, or in act and deed, and thus to show themselves in their whole bearing as the guardians and observers of the law. As the hand is the medium of action, and carrying in the hand represents handling, so the space between the eyes, or the forehead, is that part of the body which is generally visible, and what is worn there is worn to be seen. This figurative interpretation is confirmed and placed be- yond doubt by such parallel passages as Prov. iii. 3, " Bind them (the commandments) about thy neck ; write them upon the tables of thine heart" (cf. vers. 21, 22, iv. 21, vi. 21, 22, vii. 3). ^ Possibly these scrolls were originally nothing more than a literal com- pliance with the figurative expression, or a change of the figure into a sym- bol, so that the custom did not arise from a pure misunderstanding ; though at a later period the symbolical character gave place more and more to the casual misinterpretation. On the phylacteries generally, see my Archao- loyie and Herzog's Cycl. 38 THE SECOND BOOK OF MOSES. JOURNEY FROM SUCCOTH, AND PASSAGE THROUGH THE RED SEA. — CHAP. XIII. 17-XIV. 81. Chap. xiii. 17-22. Journey from Succoth to Etham. — Succoth, Israel's first place of encampment after their departure, was probably the rendezvous for the whole nation, so that it was from this point that they first proceeded in an orderly march. The shortest and most direct route from Egypt to Canaan would have been by the road to Gaza, in the land of the Phifistines ; but God did not lead them by this road, lest they should repent of their movement as soon as the Philistines opposed them, and so desire to return to Egypt. IS : firj, after 10X to say (to himself), i.e. to think, with the subordinate idea of anxiety. The Philistines were very warlike, and would hardly have failed to resist the entrance of the Israelites into Canaan, of which they had taken possession of a very large portion. But the Israelites were not prepared for such a con- flict, as is sufficiently evident from their despair, in chap. xiv. 10 sqq. For this reason God made them turn round (3D^ for ^D^, see Ges. § 67) by the way of the desert of the Red Sea. Pre- vious to the account of their onward march, it is still further stated in vers. 18, 19, that they went out equipped, and took Joseph's bones with them, according to his last request. Q^E^n, from tJ'ph lumbus, lit. lumhis accincti, signifles equipped, as a comparison of this word as it is used in Josh. i. 14, iv. 12, with D"^^n in Num. xxxii. 30, 32, Deut. iii. 18, places beyond all doubt ; that is to say, not " armed," Kad(07r\iafj,evot, (Si/m.), but prepared for the march, as contrasted with fleeing in disorder like fugitives. For this reason they were able to fulfil Joseph's request, from which fact Calvin draws the following conclusion : " In the midst of their adversity the people had never lost sight of the promised redemption. For unless the celebrated adjura- tion of Joseph had been a subject of common conversation among them all, Moses would never have thought of it." — Ver. 20. From Succoth they went to Etham. With regard to the situation of Succoth (from ribp huts, probably a shepherd encampment), only so much can be determined, that this place was to the south-east of Raemses, on the way to Etham. Etham was " at the end of the desert," which is called the desert of Etham in Num. xxxiii. 8, and the desert of Shur {Jifar^ see CHAP. XIII. 17-22. 39 Gen. xvi. 7) in Ex. xv. 22 ; so that it was where Egypt ends and the desert of Arabia begins, in a line which curves from the northern extremity of the Gulf of Arabia up to the Birhet Temseh, or Crocodile Lake, and then on to Lake Menzalet. According to the more precise statements of travellers, this line is formed from the point of the gulf northwards, by a broad sandy tract of land to the east of Ajrud, which never rises more than about three feet above the water-mark {Robinson, Pal. i. p. 80). It takes in the banks of the old canal, which commence about an hour and a half to the north of Suez, and run northwards for a distance which Seetzen accomplished in 4 hours upon camels {Rob. Pal. i. p. 548 ; Seetzen, B,. iii. pp. 151, 152). Then follow the so-called Bitter Lakes, a dry, sometimes swampy basin, or deep white salt plain, the surface of which, according to the measurements of French engineers, is 40 or 50 feet lower than the ordinary water-mark at Suez. On the north this basin is divided from the Birket Temseh by a still higher tract of land, the so-called Isthmus of Arbek. Hence " Etham at the end of the desert" is to be sought for either on the Isthmus of Arbek, in the neighbourhood of the later Sera- peum, or at the southern end of the Bitter Lakes. The distance is a conclusive argument against the former, and in favour of the latter ; for although Seetzen travelled from Suez to Arbek in 8 hours, yet according to the accounts of the French savan, du Bois AymS, who passed through this basin several times, from the northern extremity of the Bitter Lakes to Suez is 60,000 metres (16 hours' journey), — a distance so great, that the children of Israel could not possibly have gone from Etham to HacJiiroth in a day's march. Hence we must look for Etham at the southern extremity of the basin of the Bitter Lake,^ which Israel might reach in two days from Abu Keishib, and then on the third day arrive at the plain of Suez, between Ajrud and the sea. Succoth, therefore, must be sought on the ^ There is no force in the objection to this situation, that according to different geognostic indications, the Gulf of Suez formerly stretched much farther nort&, and covered the basin of the Bitter Lake ; for there is no evidence that it reached as far as this in the time of Moses ; and the state- ments of early writers as to the position of Heroopolis in the inner corner of the Arabian Gulf, and not far to the north of Klysma, furnish no clear evi- denco of this, as Knohel has already observed. 40 THE SECOND BOOK OF MOSES. western border of the Bitter Lake. — Vers. 21, 22. From Etham, at the edge of the desert which separates Egypt from Asia, the Israehtes were to enter the pathless desert, and leave the inha- bited country. Jehovah then undertook to direct the march, and give them a safe-conduct, through a miraculous token of His presence. Whilst it is stated in vers. 17, 18, that Elohim led them and determined the direction of their road, to show that they did not take the course, which they pursued, upon their own judgment, but by the direction of God ; in vers 21, 22, it is said that " Jehovah went before them by day in a pillar of cloud, to lead them the way, and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light J to go by day and night,'^ i.e. that they might march at all hours.^ To this sign of the divine presence and guidance there was a natural analogon in the caravan fire, which consisted of small iron vessels or grates, with wood fires burning in them, fastened at the end of long poles, and carried as a guide in front of caravans, and, according to Curtius (de gestis Alex. M. V. 2, 7), in trackless countries in the front of armies also, and by which the direction of the road was indicated in the day-time by the smoke, and at night by tlie light of the fire. There was a still closer analogy in the custom of the ancient Persians, as described by Curtius (iii. 3, 9), of carrying fire, " which they called sacred and eternal," in silver altars, in front of the army. But the pillar of cloud and fire must not be confounded with any such caravan and army fire, or set down as nothing more than a mythical conception, or a dressing up of this natural custom. The cloud was not produced by an ordinary caravan fire, nor was it " a mere symbol of the presence of God, which derived all its majesty from the belief of the Israelites, that Jehovah was there in the midst of them," according to Kosters attempt to idealize the rationalistic explanation ; but it had a miraculous origin and a supernatural character. We are not to regard the phenomenon as consisting of two different pillars, that appeared alternately, one of cloud, and the other of fire. ^ Knohel is quite wrong in affirming, that according to the primary work, the cloud was first instituted after the erection of the tabernacle. For in the passages cited in proof of this (chap. xl. 34 sqq. ; Num. ix. 15 sqq., X. 11, 12, of. xvii. 7), the cloud is invariably referred to, with the definite article, as something abeady known, so that all these passages refer to ver. 21 of the present chapter. CHAP. XIII. 17-22. 41 There was but one pillar of both cloud and fire (chap. xiv. 24) ; for even when shining in the dark, it is still called the pillar of cloud (chap. xiv. 19), or the cloud (Num. ix. 21) ; so that it was a cloud with a dark side and a bright one, causing darkness and also lighting the night (xiv. 20), or " a cloud, and fire in it by night" (xl. 38). Consequently we have to imagine the cloud as the covering of the fire, so that by day it appeared as a dark cloud in contrast with the light of the sun, but by night as a fiery splendour, " a fire-look" ({^X-nsno3, Num. ix. 15, 16). When this cloud went before the army of Israel, it assumed the form of a column ; so that by day it resembled a dark column of smoke rising up towards heaven, and by night a column of fire, to show the whole army what direction to take. But when it stood still above the tabernacle, or came down upon it, it most probably took the form of a round globe of cloud ; and when it separated the Israelites from the Egyptians at the Red Sea, we have to imagine it spread out like a bank of cloud, forming, as it were, a dividing wall. In this cloud Jehovah, or the Angel of God, the visible representative of the invisible God under the Old Testament, was really present with the people of Israel, so that He spoke to Moses and gave him His command- ments out of the cloud. In this, too, appeared " the glory of the Lord" (chap. xvi. 10, xl. 34; Num. xvii. 7), the Shechinah of the later Jewish theology. The fire in the pillar of cloud was the same as that in which the Lord revealed Himself to Moses out of the bush, and afterwards descended upon Sinai amidst thunder and lightning in a thick cloud (chap. xix. 16, 18). It was a symbol of the " zeal of the Lord," and therefore was enveloped in a cloud, which protected Israel by day from heat, sunstroke, and pestilence (Isa. iv. 5, 6, xlix. 10 ; Ps. xci. 5, 6, cxxi. 6), and by night lighted up its path by its luminous splen- dour, and defended it from the terrors of the night and from all calamity (Ps. xxvii. 1 sqq., xci. 5, 6) ; but which also threat- ened sudden destruction to those who murmured against God (Num. xvii. 10), and sent out a devouring fire against the rebels and consumed them (Lev. x. 2 ; Num. xvi. 35). As Sartorius has aptly said, " We must by no means regard it as a mere appearance or a poetical figure, and just as little as a mere mechanical clothing of elementary forms, such, for example, as storm -clouds or natural fire. Just as little, too, must we sup- 42 THE SECOND BOOK OF MOSES. pose the visible and material part of it to have been an element of the divine nature, which is purely spiritual. We must rather regard it as a dynamic conformation, or a higher corporeal form, composed of the earthly sphere and atmosphere, through the determining influence of the personal and specific (speciem faciens) presence of God upon the earthly element, which cor- poreal form God assumed and pervaded, that He might mani- fest His own real presence therein."^ — Ver. 22. This sign of the presence of God did not depart from Israel so long as the people contiaued in the wilderness. Chap. xiv. Passage of the Israelites through the Eed Sea; destruction of Pharaoh and his Army. — Vers. 1, 2. At Etham God commanded the Israelites to turn (n^K') and encamp by the sea, before Pihachiroth, between Mig- dol and the sea, before Baalzephon, opposite to it. In Num. xxxiii. 7, the march is described thus: on leaving Etham they turned up to (J>V) Pihachiroth, which is before (''P.S"''J? in the front of) Baalzephon, and encamped before Migdol. The only one of these places that can be determined with any certainty is Pihachiroth, or Hachiroth (Num. xxxiii. 8, pi being simply the Egyptian article), which name has undoubtedly been preserved in the Ajrud mentioned by Edrisi in the middle of the twelfth century. At present this is simply a fort, with a well 250 feet deep, the water of which is so bitter, however, that camels can hardly drink it. It stands on the pilgrim road from Kahira to Mecca, four hours' journey to the north-west of Suez {vid. Ro- binson, Pal. i. p. V "iJD as in Job xii. 14) ; and in his ob- duracy he would resolve to go after them with his army, and 44 THE SECOND BOOK OF MOSES. bring them under his sway again. — Vers. 4 sqq. When it was announced that Israel had fled, " the heart of Pharaoh and his servants turned against the people" and they repented that they had let them go. When and whence the information came, we are not told. The common opinion, that it was brought after the Israelites changed their route, has no foundation in the text. For the change in Pharaoh's feelings towards the Israelites, and his regret that he had let them go, were caused not by their supposed mistake, but by their flight. Now the king and his servants regarded the exodus as a flight, as soon as they recovered from the panic caused by the death of the first-born, and began to consider the consequences of the permission given to the people to leave his service. This may have occurred as early as the second day after the exodus. In that case, Pharaoh would have had time to collect chariots and horsemen, and overtake the Israelites at Hachiroth, as they could easily perform the same journey in two days, or one day and a half, to which the Israelites had taken more than three. "He yoked his chariot (had it yoked, cf. 1 Kings vi. 14), and took his people {i.e. his warriors) ivith him," viz. " six hundred chosen war chariots (ver. 7), and all the chariots of Egypt" {sc. that he could get together in the time), and " royal guards upon them all" C''^?^, TpicrraTai, tristatae qui et terni statores vocantur, nomen est secundi gradus post regiam dignitatem (Jerome on Ezek. xxiii. 23), not charioteers (see my Com. on 1 Kings ix. 22). According to ver. 9, the army raised by Pharaoh consisted of chariot horses (33n DID), riding horses (^'''^3, lit. runners, 1 Kings v. 6), and VJ}, the men be- longing to them. War chariots and cavalry were always the leading force of the Egyptians (cf. Isa. xxxi. 1, xxxvi. 9). Three times (vers. 4, 8, and 17) it is stated that Jehovah hardened Pharaoh's heart, so that he pursued the Israelites, to show that God had decreed this hardening, to glorify Himself in the judg- ment and death of the proud king, who would not honour God, the Holy One, in his life. " And the children of Israel were going out with a high hand:" ver. 8 is a conditional clause in the sense of, " although they went out" {Eioald, § 341). n»n T, the high hand, is the high hand of Jehovah with the might which it displayed (Isa. xxvi. 11), not the armed hand of the Israelites. This is the meaning also in Num. xxxiii. 3 ; it is different in Num. sv. 30. The very fact that Pharaoh did not discern the CHAP. XIV. 10-29 45 lifting up of Jehovah's hand in the exodus of Israel displayed the hardening of his heart. " Beside Pihachiroth ;" see ver. 2. Vers. 10-14. When the Israelites saw the advancing army of the Egyptians, they were greatly alarmed ; for their situation to human eyes was a very unfortunate one. Shut in on the east by the sea, on the south and west by high mountains, and with the army of the Egyptians behind them, destruction seemed in- evitable, since they were neither outwardly armed nor inwardly prepared for a successful battle. Although they cried unto the Lord, they had no confidence in Plis help, notwithstanding all the previous manifestations of the fidelity of the true God ; they therefore gave vent to the despair of their natural heart in com- plaints against Moses, who had brought them out of the servi- tude of Egypt to give them up to die in the desert. " Hast thou, because there were no graves at all (PX V?^, a double negation to give emphasis) in Egypt, fetched us to die in the desert?" Their further words in ver. 12 exao;o;erated the true state of the case Do from cowardly despair. For it was only when the oppression increased, after Moses' first interview with Pharaoh, that they complained of what Moses had done (chap. v. 21), whereas at first they accepted his proposals most thankfully (chap. iv. 31), and even afterwards implicitly obeyed his directions. — Ver. 13. Moses met their unbelief and fear with the energy of strong faith, and promised them such help from the Lord, that they would never see again the Egyptians, whom they had seen that day. on'''?'? "'^'^ does not mean ov rpoirov ewpaKare (LXX.), quemadmodum vidistis (^Ros., Kn.) ; but the sentence is inverted : " The Egyptians, whom ye have seen to-day, ye will never see again." — Ver. 14. "Jehovah will Jight for you (^5^, dat comm.), hut you will he silent" i.e. keep quiet, and not complain any more (cf. Gen. xxxiv. 5). Vers. 15-29. The words of Jehovah to Moses, " What criest thou to Mef" imply that Moses had appealed to God for help, or laid the complaints of the people before Him, and do not convey any reproof, but merely an admonition to resolute action. The people were to move forward, and Moses was to stretch out his hand with his staff over the sea and divide it, so that the people might go through the midst on dry ground. Vers. 17 and 18 repeat the promise in vers. 3, 4. The command and promise were followed by immediate help (vers. 19-29). Whilst Moses 46 THE SECOND BOOK OF MOSES. divided the water with his staff, and thus prepared the way, the augel of God removed from before the Israehtes, and placed himself behind them as a defence against the Egyptians, who were following them. " Upon his chariots, and upon his horse- men" (ver. 17), is in apposition to "all his host;" as Pharaoh's army consisted entirely of chariots and horsemen (cf. ver. 18). — Yer. 20. " And it was the cloud and the darkness {sc. to the Egyptians), and lighted up the night (sc. to the Israelites)." Fuit nubes partim lucida et partim tenehricosa, ex una parte tenebricosa fuit j3gyptiis, ex altera lucida Israelitis (Jonathan). Although the article is striking in "n^nni, the difficulty is not to be removed, as Ewald proposes, by substituting '^t^'f]'!!!) " and as for the cloud, it caused darkness;" for in that case the grammar would re- quire the imperfect with i consec. This alteration of the text is also rendered suspicious from the fact that both Onhelos and the LXX. read and render the word as a substantive. — Vers. 21, 22. When Moses stretched out his hand with the staff (ver. 16) over the sea, " Jehovah made the water go (flow away) by a strong east wind the whole night, and made the sea into dry (ground), and the water split itself" {i.e. divided by flowing northward and southward) ; " and the Israelites went in the m,idst of the sea (where the water had been driven away by the wind) in the dry, and the water was a wall (i.e. a protection formed by the dam- ming up of the water) on the right and on the left." D^li^, the east wind, which may apply either to the south-east or north- east, as the Hebrew has special terms for the four quarters only. Whether the wind blew directly from the east, or somewhat from the south-east or north-east, cannot be determined, as we do not know the exact spot where the passage was made. In any case, the division of the water in both directions could only have been effected by an east wind ; and although even now the ebb is strengthened by a north-east wind, as Tischendorf says, and the flood is driven so much to the south by a strong north-west wind that the gulf can be ridden through, and even forded on foot, to the north of Suez (y. Schub. Reise ii. p. 269), and " as a rule the rise and fall of the water in the Arabian Gulf is nowhere so dependent upon the wind as it is at Suez" (Wellsted, Arab. ii. 41, 42), the drying of the sea as here described cannot be ac- counted for by an ebb strengthened by the east wind, l)ecause the water is all driven southwards in the ebb, and not sent in CHAP. XIV. 15-29. 47 two opposite directions. Such a division could only be produced by a wind sent by God, and working with omnipotent force, in connection with which the natural phenomenon of the ebb may no doubt have exerted a subordinate influence.^ The . passage was effected in the night, through the whole of which the wind was blowing, and in the morning watch (between three and six o'clock, ver. 24) it was finished. As to the possibility of a whole nation crossing with their ^ocks, Mobinson concludes that this might have been accomplished within the period of an extraordinary ebb, which lasted three, or at the most four hours, and was strengthened by the influence of a miraculous wind. " As the Israelites," he observes, " num- bered more than two millions of persons, besides flocks and herds, they would of course be able to pass but slowly. If the part left dry were broad enough to enable them to cross in a body one thousand abreast, which would require a space of more than half a mile in breadth (and is perhaps the largest supposition admis- sible), still the column would be more than two thousand per- sons in depth, and in all probability could not have extended less than two miles. It would then have occupied at least an hour in passing over its own length, or in entering the sea ; and de- ducting this from the largest time intervening, before the Egj^p- tians also have entered the sea, there will remain only time enough, under the circumstances, for the body of the Israelites to have passed, at the most, over a space of three or four miles." (Researches in Palestine, vol. i. p. 84.) But as the dividing of the water cannot be accounted for by an extraordinary ebb, even though miraculously strengthened, we have no occasion to limit the time allowed for the crossing to the ordinary period of an ebb. If God sent the wind, which divided the water and laid the bottom dry, as soon as night set in, the crossing might have begun at nine o'clock in the evening, if not before, and lasted till four or five o'clock in the morning » But as the ebb at Suez leaves the shallow parts of the gulf so far dry, when a strong wind is blowing, that it is possible to cross over them, we may understand how the legend could have arisen among the Ichthyophagi of that neighbourhood (^Diod. Sic. 3, 39) and even the inhabitants of Memphis {Eusch. prgep. ev. 9, 27), that the Israelites took advantage of a strong ebb, and how modern writers like Cleriais have tried to show that the passage through the sea may be so accounted for. 48 THE SECOND BOOK OF MOSES. (see ver. 27). By this extension of the time we gain enough for the flocks, which Robinson has left out of his calculation. The Egyptians naturally followed close upon the Israelites, from whom they were only divided by the pillar of cloud and fire ; and when the rear of the Israelites had reached the opposite share, they were in the midst of the sea. And in the morning watch Jehovah cast a look upon them in the pillar of cloud and fire, and threw their army into confusion (ver. 24). The breadth of the gulf at the point in question cannot be precisely deter- mined. At the narrowest point above Suez, it is only two-thirds of a mile in breadth, or, according to Niehuhr, 3450 feet ; but it was probably broader formerly, and even now is so farther up, opposite to Tell Kolzum (Bob. i. pp. 84 and 70). The place where the Israelites crossed must have been broader, otherwise the Egyptian army, with more than six hundred chariots and many horsemen, could not have been in the sea and perished there when the water returned. — ^^ And Jehovah looked at the army of the Egyptians in (with) the pillar of cloud and fire, and troubled it." This look of Jehovah is to be regarded as the ap- pearance of fire suddenly bursting forth from the pillar of cloud that was turned towards the Egyptians, which threw the Egyp- tian army into alarm and confusion, and not as " a storm with thunder and lightning," as Josephus and even Rosenmiiller as- sume, on the ground of Ps. Ixxviii. 18, 19, though without noticing the fact that the psalmist has merely given a poetical version of the event, and intends to show " how all the powers of nature entered the service of the majestic revelation of Je- hovah, when He judged Egypt and set Israel free" (Delitzsch). The fiery look of Jehovah was a much more stupendous pheno- menon than a storm ; hence its effect was incomparably grander, viz. a state of confusion in which the wheels of the chariots were broken off from the axles, and the Egyptians were therefore impeded in their efforts to escape. — Ver. 25. " And (Jehovah) made the wheels of his (the Egyptian's) chariots give way, and made, that he (the Egyptian) drove in difficulty T in3 to drive a chariot (2 Sam. vi. 3, cf. 2 Kings ix. 20).— Vers. 26^, 27. Then God directed Moses to stretch out his staff again over the sea, and the sea came back with the turning of the morning (when the morning turned, or approached) to its position (|n''N peren- nitas, the lasting or permanent position), and the Egyptians were CHAP. XIV. 30, 31 ; XV. 1-21. 49 flying to meet it. " When the east wind which divided the sea ceased to blow, the sea from the north and south began to flow together on the western side;" whereupon, to judge from chap XV. 10, the wind began immediately to blow from the west, and drove the waves in the face of the flying Egyptians. " And thus Jehovah shook the Egyptians {i.e. plunged them into the greatest confusion) in the midst of the seaj" so that Pharaoh's chariots and horsemen, to the very last man, were buried in the waves. Vers. 30, 31. This miraculous deliverance of Israel from the power of Egypt, through the mighty hand of tlieir God, pro- duced so wholesome a fear of the Lord, that they believed in Jehovah, and His servant Moses. — Ver. 31. " The great hand:" i.e. the might which Jehovah had displayed upon Egypt. In ad« dition to the glory of God through the judgment upon Pharaoh (vers. 4, 17), the guidance of Israel through the sea was also designed to establish Israel still more firmly in the fear of the Lord and in faith. But faith in the Lord was inseparably con- nected with faith in Moses as the servant of the Lord. Hence the miracle was wrought through the hand and staff of Moses. But this second design of the miraculous guidance of Israel did not exclude the first, viz. glory upon Pharaoh. From this manifestation of Jehovah's omnipotence, the Israelites were to discern not only the merciful Deliverer, but also the holy Judge of the ungodly, that they might grow in the fear of God, as well as in the faith which they had already shown, when, trusting in the omnipotence of Jehovah, they had gone, as though upon dry land (Heb. xi. 29), between the watery walls which might at any moment have overwhelmed them. MOSES' SONG AT THE RED SEA. — CHAP. XV. 1-21. In the song of praise which Moses and the children of Israel sang at the Ked Sea, in celebration of the wonderful works of Jehovah, the congregation of Israel commemorated the fact of its deliverance and its exaltation into the nation of God. By their glorious deliverance from the slave-house of Egypt, Jeho- vah had practically exalted the seed of Abraham into His own nation ; and in the destruction of Pharaoh and his host. He had glorified Himself as God of the gods and King of the heathen, PENT. — VOL. II. D 50 THE SECOND BOOK OF MOSES. whom no power on earth could defy with impunity. As the fact of Israel's deliverance from the power of its oppressors is of everlasting importance to the Church of the Lord in its conflict with the ungodly powers of the world, in which the Lord con- tinually overthrows the enemies of His kingdom, as He over threw Pharaoh and his horsemen in the depths of the sea : so Moses' song at the Red Sea furnishes the Church of the Lord with the materials for its songs of praise in all the great con- flicts which it has to sustain, during its onward course, with the powers of the world. Plence not only does the key-note of this song resound through all Israel's songs, in praise of the glorious works of Jehovah for the good of His people (see especially Isa. xii.), but the song of Moses the servant of God will also be sung, along with the song of the Lamb, by the conquerors who stand upon the " sea of glass," and have gained the victory over the beast and his image (Rev. xv. 3). The substance of this song, which is entirely devoted to the praise and adoration of Jehovah, is the judgment inflicted upon the heathen power of the world in the fall of Pharaoh, and the salvation which flowed from this judgment to Israel. Although Moses is not expressly mentioned as the author of the song, its authenticity, or Mosaic authorship, is placed beyond all doubt by both the contents and the form. The song is composed of three gradually increasing strophes, each of which commences with the praise of Jehovah, and ends with a description of the overthrow of the Egyptian host (vers. 2-5, 6-10, 11-18). The theme announced in the introduction in ver. 1 is thus treated in three different ways ; and whilst the omnipotence of God, dis- played in the destruction of the enemy, is the prominent topic in the first two strophes, the third depicts with prophetic confi- dence the fruit of this glorious event in the establishment of Israel, as a kingdom of Jehovah, in the promised inheritance. Modern criticism, it is true, has taken offence at this prophetic insight into the future, and rejected the song of Moses, just be- cause the wonders of God are carried forward in vers. 16, 17, beyond the Mosaic times. But it was so natural a thing that, after the miraculous deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt, they should turn their eyes to Canaan, and, looking forward with certainty to the possession of the promised land, should an- ticipate with believing confidence the foundation of a sanctuary CHAP. V. 16-5. 51 there, in which their God would dwell with them, that none but those who altogether reject the divine mission of Moses, and set down the mighty works of God in Egypt as myths, could ever deny to Moses this anticipation and prospect. Even Ewald admits that this grand song of praise " was probably the im- mediate effect of first enthusiasm in the Mosaic age,'^ though he also ignores the prophetic character of the song, and denies the reality of any of the supernatural wonders of the Old Tes- tament. There is nothing to prevent our understanding the words, " then sang Moses," as meaning that Moses not only sang this song with the Israelites, but composed it for tbe con- gregation to the praise of Jehovah. Vers. 16-5. Introduction and first strophe. — The introduc- tion, which contains the theme of the song, " Sing will I to the Lord, for highly exalted is He, horse and his rider He hath thrown into the sea," was repeated, when sung, as an anti-strophe by a chorus of women, with Miriam at their head (cf. vers. 20, 21) ; whether after every verse, or only at the close of the longer strophes, cannot be determined, nw to arise, to grow up, trop. to show oneself exalted ; connected with an inf. abs. to give still further emphasis. Jehovah had displayed His supe- riority to all earthly power by casting horses and riders, the proud army of the haughty Pharaoh, into the sea. This had filled His people with rejoicing : (ver. 2), " My strength and song is Jah, He became my salvation ; He is my God, ivhom I extol, my fathers God, whom I exalt." TJJ strength, might, not praise or glory, even in Ps. viii. 2. ^yP^, an old poetic form for n^pT, from "lOT, primarily to hum ; thence "1ST -y^aXXeiv, to play music, or sing with a musical accompaniment. Jah, the con- centration of Jehovah, the God of salvation ruling the course of history with absolute freedom (cf. vol. i. p. 74), has passed from this song into the Psalms, but is restricted to the higher style of poetry. " For He became salvation to me, granted me deliver- ance and salvation :" on the use of vav consec. in explanatory clauses, see Gen. xxvi. 12. This clause is taken from our song, and introduced in Isa. xii. 2, Ps. cxviii. 14. vK nr : this Jah, such an one is my God. l^x : Hiphil of ni3, related to nw, niXJ, to be lovely, delightful, Hiph. to extol, to praise, Bo^dcrco, glorifi- cabo {LXX., Vulg.). " The God of my father :" i.e. of Abraham as the ancestor of Israel, or, as in chap. iii. 6, of the three 52 THE SECOND BOOK OF MOSES. patriarchs combined. What He promised them (Gen. xv. 14, xlvi. 3, 4) He had now fulfilled. — Ver. 3. ^^ Jehovah is a man of war :" one who knows how to make war, and possesses the power to destroy His foes. " Jehovah is His name ;" i.e. He has just proved Himself to be the God who rules with un- limited might. For (ver. 4) " Pharaolis chariots and his might (his military force) He cast into the sea, and the choice (the chosen ones) of his knights (shelisldm, see chap. xiv. 7) were drowned in the Red Sea^ — Ver. 5. " Floods cover them (^D'^D3^, defectively written for Vp3^ = IDD^^ and the suffix ^O for io, only used here) ; they go down into the deep like stone" which never appears again. Vers. 6-10. Jehovah had not only proved Himself to be a true man of war in destroying the Egyptians, but also as the glorious and strong one, who overthrows His enemies at the very moment when they think they are able to destroy His people. — Ver. 6. " Thy right hand, Jehovah, glorified in power (gloriously equipped with power : on the Yod in ''l'^'??., see Gen. xxxi. 39 ; the form is masc, and P^^, which is of common gender, is first of all construed as a masculine, as in Prov. xxvii. 16, and then as a feminine). Thy right hand dashes in pieces the enemyT XT\ =TV^ : only used here, and in Judg. x. 8. The thought is quite a general one : the right hand of Jehovah smites every foe. This thought is deduced from the proof just seen of the power of God, and is still further expanded in ver 7, " In the fulness of Thy majesty Thou pullest down Thine opponents^* D"in generally applied to the pulling down of buildings ; then used figuratively for the destruction of foes, who seek to de- stroy the building (the work) of God ; in this sense here and Ps. xxviii. 5. Q^pi^ : those that rise up in hostility against a man (Deut. xxxiii. 11 ; Ps. xviii. 40, etc.). " Thou lettest out Thy burning heat, it devours them like stubble.'" fin, the burning breath of the wrath of God, which Jehovah causes to streani out like fire (Ezek. vii. 3), ^vas probably a play upon the fiery look cast upon the Egyptians from the pillar of cloud (cf. Isa. ix. 18, X. 17 ; and on the last words, Isa. v. 24, Nah. i. 10). — Vers. 8-10. Thus had Jehovah annihilated the Egj'ptians. " And by the breath of Thy nostrils {i.e. the strong east wind sent by God, which is described as the blast of the breath of His nostrils ; cf. Ps. xviii. 16) the waters heaped themselves up (piled CHAP. XV. 9-18. 53 themselves up, so that it was possible to go between them like walls) ; the Jlowing ones stood like a heap'' (1J cumulus ; it occurs in Josh. iii. 13, 16, and Ps. xxxiii. 7, Ixxviii. 13, where it is bor- rowed from this passage. Dvp : the running, flowing ones ; a poetic epithet applied to waves, rivers, or brooks, Ps. Ixxviii. 16, 44 ; Isa. xliv. 3). " The waves congealed in the heart of the sea ;" a poetical description of the piling up of the waves like solid masses. Ver. 9. " The enemy said : I pursue, overtahe, divide spoil, my soul becomes full of them ; I draw my sword, my hand will root them out." By these short clauses following one another with- out any copula, the confidence of the Egyptian as he pursued them breathing vengeance is very strikingly depicted. t^S3 : the soul as the seat of desire, i.e. of fury, which sought to take vengeance on the enemy, " to cool itself on them." K'''"iin ; to drive from their possession, to exterminate (cf. Num. xiv. 12). — Ver. 10. " Thou didst blow with Thy breath : the sea covered them, they sank as lead in the mighty waters." One breath of God was sufficient to sink the proud foe in the waves of the sea. The waters are called Q''T!'^j because of the mighty proof of the Creator's glory which is furnished by the waves as they rush majestically along. Vers. 11-18. Third strophe. On the ground of this glori- ous act of God, the song rises in the third strophe into firm assurance, that in His incomparable exaltation above all gods Jehovah will finish the work of salvation, already begun, fill all the enemies of Israel with terror at the greatness of His arm, bring His people to His holy dwelling-place, and plant them on the mountain of His inheritance. What the Lord had done thus far, the singer regarded as a pledge of the future. — Ver. 11. " Who is like unto Thee among the gods, 0 Jehovah (Qv^ : not strong ones, but gods, Elohim, Ps. Ixxxvi. 8, because none of the many so-called gods could perform such deeds), who is like unto Thee, glorified in holiness ?" God had glorified Him- self in holiness through the redemption of His people and the destruction of His foes ; so that Asaph could sing, " Thy way, O God, is in holiness" (Ps. Ixxvii. 13). E^P, holiness, is the sublime and incomparable majesty of God, exalted above all the imperfections and blemishes of the finite creature (vid. chap, xix. 6). ^' Fearful for praises, doing wonders" The bold ex- 54 THE SECOND BOOK OF MOSES. pression n^np ir)\^ conveys more than summe venerandus, s. colen dus laudibus, and signifies terrible to praise, terribilis laudibus As His rule among men is fearful (Ps. Ixvi. 5), because He performs fearful miracles, so it is only with fear and trembling that man can sing songs of praise worthy of His wondrous works. Omnium enim, laudantlum vires, linguas et mentes superant ideogue magno cum timore et tremore eum laudant omnes angeli et sancti (C. a Lap.). " Thou stretchest out Thy hand, the earth swallows themV With these words the singer passes in survey all the mighty acts of the Lord, which were wrapt up in this miraculous overthrow of the Egyptians. The words no longer refer to the destruction of Pharaoh and his host. What Egypt had experi- enced would come upon all the enemies of the Lord and His people. Neither the idea of the earth swallowing them, nor the use of the imperfect, is applicable to the destruction of the Egyp- tians (see vers. 1, 4, 5, 10, 19, where the perfect is applied to it as already accomplished). — Ver. 13. " Thou leadest through Thy mercy the people whom, Thou redeemest ; Thou guidest them through Thy might to Thy holy habitation^ The deliverance from Egypt and guidance through the Red Sea were a pledge to the redeemed people of their entrance into the promised land. The holy habitation of God was Canaan (Ps. Ixxviii. 54), which liad been consecrated as a sacred abode for Jehovah in the midst of His people by the revelations made to the patriarchs there, and especially by the appearance of God at Bethel (Gen. xxviii. 16 sqq., xxxi. 13, xxxv. 7). — Ver. 14. ^^ People hear, they are afraid; trembling seizes the inhabitaids of Philistia." — Ver. 15. " Then are the princes (alluphim, see Gen. xxxvi. 15) of Edom confounded ; the mighty men of Moab, trembling seizes them ; all the inhabitants of Canaan despair^" ^''T^, like DylK in 2 Kings xxiv. 15, scriptio plena for ^y^, strong, powerful ones. As soon as these nations should hear of the miraculous guidance of Israel through the Red Sea, and Pharaoh's destruction, they would be thrown into despair from anxiety and alarm, and would not op- pose the march of Israel through their land. — Ver. 16. " Fear and dread fall upon them ; for the greatness of Thine arm (the adjective ''HS placed as a substantive before the noun) they are dumb (^'^T, from D'?'=i) as stones, till Thy people pass through, Jehovah, till the people which Thou hast purchased pass through.^* Israel was still on its march to Canaan, an evident proof that CHAP. XV. 11-18. 55 vers. 13-15 do not destribe what was past, but that future events were foreseen in spirit, and are represented by the use of per- fects as being quite as certain as if they had already happened. The singer mentions not only Edom and Moab, but Philistia also, and the inhabitants of Canaan, as enemies who are so paralyzed with terror, as to offer no resistance to the passage of Israel through their territory ; whereas the history shows that Edom did oppose their passing through its land, and they were obliged to go round in consequence (Num. xx. 18 sqq. ; Deut. ii. 3, 8), whilst Moab attempted to destroy them through the power of Balaam's curse (Num. xxii. 2 sqq.) ; and what the inhabi- tants of Philistia and Canaan had to fear, was not their passing through, but their conquest of the land.^ We learn, however, from Josh. ii. 9, 10 and ix. 9, that the report of Israel's miracu- lous passage through the Red Sea had reached to Canaan, and filled its inhabitants with terror. — Ver. 17. " Thou wilt bring and plant them in the mountain of Thine inheritance, the place lohich Thou hast made for Thy dwelling-place, Jehovah, for the sanc- tuary, Lo7xl, lohich Thy hands prepared." On the dagesh dirim. in ^"^ipp, see chap. ii. 3. The futures are not to be taken as ex- pressive of wishes, but as simple predictions, and are not to be twisted into preterites, as they have been by Knohel. The ^^ mountain of JehovaKs inheritance" was not the hill country of Canaan (Deut. iii. 25), but the mountain which Jehovah had prepared for a sanctuary (Ps. Ixxviii. 54), and chosen as a dwelling-place through the sacrifice of Isaac. The planting of Israel upon this mountain does not signify the introduction of the Israelites into the promised land, but the planting of the people of God in the house of the Lord (Ps. xcii. 14), in the future sanctuary, where Jehovah would perfect His fellowship with His people, and where the people would show themselves by their sacrifices to be the " people of possession," and would 1 The fact that the inhabitants of Philistia and Canaan are described in the same terms as Edom and Moab, is an unquestionable proof that this song was composed at a time when the command to exterminate the Canaanites had not yet been given, and the boundary of the territory to be captured by the Israelites was not yet fixed ; in other words, that it was sung by Moses and the Israelites after the passage through the Ked Sea. In the words -|hj;'> iy in ver. 16, there is by no means the allusion to or play upon, the passage through the Jordan, which Knohel introduces. 56 THE SECOND BOOK OF MOSES serve Him for ever as their King. This was the goal, to wliich the redemption from Egypt pointed, and to which the prophetic foresight of Moses raised both himself and his people in this song, as he beholds in spirit and ardently desires the kingdom of Jehovah in its ultimate completion.^ The song closes in ver. 18 "with an inspiring prospect of the time, when " Jehovah will be King (of His people) /or ever and ever ;^^ and in ver. 19, it is dovetailed into the historical narrative by the repetition of the fact to which it owed its origin, and by the explanatory " for," which points back to the opening verse. Vers. 19-21. In the words " Pharaolis horse, with his chariots and horsemen^^ Pharaoh, riding upon his horse as the leader of the army, is placed at the head of the enemies destroyed by Jehovah. In ver. 20, Miriam is called " the prophetess" not o6 poeticam et musicam facultatem [Ros.), but because of her pr. phetic gift, which may serve to explain her subsequent op- p .Si'tion to Moses (Num. xi. 1, 6); and " the sister of Aaron " tho i^h she was Moses' sister as well, and had been his deli- verer in his infancy, not " because Aaron had his own inde- pendent spiritual standing by the side of Moses" {Baumg.), but to point out the position which she was afterwards to occupy in the congregation of Israel, namely, as ranking, not with Moses, but with Aaron, and like him subordinate to Closes, who had been placed at the head of Israel as the mediator of the Old Covenant, and as such was Aaron's god (chap. iv. 16, Kurtz). • Auherlens remarks in the Jahrb. f. d. Theol. iii. p. 793, are quite to the point : "In spirit Moses already saw the people brought to Canaan, which Jehovah had described, in the promise given to the fathers and repeated to him, as His own dwelling-place where He would abide in the midst of His people in holy separation from the nations of the world. When the first stage had been so gloriously finished, he could already see the termination of the journey." ..." The nation was so entirely devoted to Jehovah, that its own dwelling-place fell into the shade beside that of its God, and assumed the appearance of a sojourning around the sanctuary of Jehovah, for God went up before the people in the pillar of cloud and fire. The fact that a mountain is mentioned in ver. 17 as the dwelling-place of Jehovah is no proof of a vaticinium post eventum, but is a true prophecy, having its natural side, however, in the fact that mountains were generally the sites chosen for divine worship and for temples ; a fact with which Moses was already acquainted (Gen. xxii. 2 ; Ex. iii. 1, 12 ; compare such passages as Num. xxii. 41, xxxiii. 52, Micah iv. 1, 2). In the actual fulfilment it was Mount Zion upon which Jehovah was enthroned as King in the midst of His people. CHAP. XV. 22-27. 57 As proplietess and sister of Aaron slie led the chorus of women, who replied to the male chorus with timbrels and dancing, and by taking up the first strophe of the song, and in this way took part in the festival ; a custom that was kept up in after times in the celebration of victories (Judg. xi. 34 ; 1 Sam. xviii. 6, 7, xxi. 12, xxix. 5), possibly in imitation of an Egyptian model (see my Archaologie, § 137, note 8). ISRAEL CONDUCTED FROM THE RED SEA TO THE MOUNTAIX OF GOD. CHAP. XV. 22-XVII. 7. Chap. XV. 22-27. March from the Red Sea to Marah AND Elim. — Being thus delivered from Egypt and led safely through tlie Ked Sea, Israel was led into the desert to the sanc- tuary of Sinai, to be adopted and consecrated by Jehovah as His possession. — Ver. 22. Leaving the Red Sea, they went into the desert of Shur. This name is given to the tract of desert which separates Egypt from Palestine, and also from the more elevated parts of the desert of Arabia, and stretches from the Mediter- ranean to the head of the Arabian Gulf or Red Sea, and thence along the eastern shore of the sea to the neighbourhood of the Wady Gharandel. In Num. xxxiii. 8 it is called the desert of Etham, from the town of Etham, which stood upon the border (see chap. xiii. 20). The spot where the Israelites encamped after crossing the sea, and sang praises to tlie Lord for their gracious deliverance, is supposed to have been the present Ayun Musa (the springs of Moses), the only green spot in the northern part of this desolate tract of desert, where water could be ob- tained. At the present time there are several springs there, which yield a dark, brackish, though drinkable water, and a few stunted palms ; and even till a very recent date country houses have been built and gardens laid out there by the richer inhabitants of Suez. From this point the Israelites went three days without finding water, till they came to Marah, where there was water, but so bitter that they could not drink it. The first spot on the road from Ayun Musa to Sinai where water can be found, is in the well of Howdra, 33 English miles from the former. It is now a basin of 6 or 8 feet in diameter, with two feet of water in it, but so disagreeably bitter and salt, that the Bedouins consider it the worst water in the whole neighbour- 58 TflE SE'^OND BOOK OF MOSES. hood {Robinson, i. 96). The distance from Ayun Musa and the quality of the water both favour the identity of Hoivdra and Marah. A whole people, travelling with children, cattle, and baggage, could not accomplish the distance in les^ than three days, and there is no other water on the road from Ayun Musa to Howara. Hence, from the time of Burckhardt, who was the first to rediscover the well, Uoivdra has been regarded as the Marah of the Israelites. In the Wady Amara, a barren valley two hours to the north of Howara, where Ewald looked for it, there' is no water to be found ; and in the Wady Gharandel, two hours to the south, to which Lepsius assigned it, the quality of the water does not agree with our account.^ It is true that no trace of the name has been preserved ; but it seems to have been given to the place by the Israelites simply on account of the bitterness of the water. This furnished the people with an inducement to murmur against Moses (ver, 24). They had probably taken a supply of water from Ayun Musa for the three days' march into the desert. But this store was now exhausted ; and, as Luther says, " when the supply fails, our faitli is soon gone." Thus even Israel forgot the many proofs of the grace of God, which it had received already. — Ver. 25. When Moses cried to the Lord in consequence, He showed him some wood which, when thrown into the water, took away its bitterness. The Bedouins, who know the neighbourhood, are not acquainted with such a tree, or with any other means of making bitter water sweet ; and this power was hardly inherent in the tree itself, though it is ascribed to it in Ecclus. xxxviii. 5, but was imparted to it through the word and power of God. We cannot assign any reason for the choice of this particular earthly means, as the Scripture says nothing about any " evident and intentional con- trast to the change in the Nile by which the sweet and pleasant water was rendered unfit for use" {Kurtz). The word YV. "wood" (see only Num. xix. 6), alone, without anything in the context to explain it, does not point to a " living tree" in con- '' The small quantity of water at Howara, " which is hardly sufficient for a few hundred men, to say nothing of so large an army as the Israelites formed" (^Seetzeri), is no proof that Howara and Marah are not identical. For the spring, which is now sanded up, may have flowed more copiously at one time, when it was kept in better order. Its present neglected state is the cause of the scarcity. CHAP. XV. 22-27. 59 trast to the " dead stick." And if any contrast had been in- tended to be shown between the punishment of the Egyptians and the training of the Israehtes, this intention would certainly have been more visibly and surely accomplished by using the staff with which Moses not only brought the plagues upon Egypt, but afterwards brought water out of the rock. If by YV we understand a tree, with which "y'^}], however, hardly agrees, it would be much more natural to suppose that there was an allusion to the tree of life, especially if we compare Gen. ii. 9 and iii. 22 with Rev. xxii. 2, " the leaves of the tree of life were for the healing of the nations," though we cannot regard this reference as established. All that is clear and undoubted is, that by employing these means, Jehovah made Himself known to the people of Israel as their Physician, and for this purpose appointed the wood for the healing of the bitter water, which threatened Israel with disease and death (2 Kings iv. 40). By this event Jehovah accomplished two things : (a) " there He jyut (made) for it (the nation) an ordinance and a riglit^^ and {h) " there He proved it" The ordinance and right which Jehovah made for Israel did not consist in the words of God quoted in ver. 26, for they merely give an explanation of the law and right, but in the divine act itself. The leading of Israel to bitter water, which their nature could not drink, and then the sweetening or curing of this w^ater, were to be a p'n for Israel, i.e., an institution or law by which God would always guide and govern His people, and a tOSK^D or right, inasmuch as Israel could always reckon upon the help of God, and deliverance from every trouble. But as Israel had not yet true confidence in the Lord, this was also a trial, serving to manifest its natural heart, and, through the relief of its distress on the part of God, to refine and strengthen its faith. The practical proof which was given of Jehovah's presence was intended to impress this truth upon the Israelites, that Jehovah as their Physician would save them from all the diseases which He had sent upon Egypt, if they would hear His voice, do what was right in His eyes, and keep all His commandments. Ver. 27. Elim, the next place of encampment, has been sought from olden time in the Wady Gharandel, about six miles south of Howdra ; inasmuch as this spot, with its plentiful sup- 60 THE S.ECOND BOOK OF MOSES. ply of comparatively good water, and its luxuriance of palms, tamarisks, acacias, and tall grass, which cause it to be selected even now as one of the principal halting-places between Suez and Sinai, quite answers to EHm, with its twelve wells of water and seventy palm-trees (cf. Roh. i. pp. 100, 101, 105). It is true the distance from Howara is short, but the encampments of such a procession as that of the Israelites are always regulated by the supply of water. Both Baumgarten and Kurtz have found in Elim a place expressly prepared for Israel, fi*om its bearing the stamp of the nation in the number of its wells and palms : a well for every tribe, and the shade of a palm-tree for the tent of each of the elders. But although the number of the wells corre- sponded to the twelve tribes of Israel, the number of the elders was much larger than that of the palms (chap. xxiv. 9). One fact alone is beyond all doubt, namely, that at Elim, this lovely oasis in the barren desert, Israel was to learn how the Lord could make His people lie down in green pastures, and lead them beside still waters, even in the barren desert of this life (Ps. xxiii. 2). Chap. xvi. Quails and Manxain the Desert of Sin. — Ver. 1. From Elim the congregation of Israel proceeded into the desert of Sin. According to Num. xxxiii. 10, they encamped at the Ked Sea between Elim and the desert of Sin ; but this is passed over here, as nothing of importance happened there. Judging from the nature of the ground, the place of encamp- ment at the Red Sea is to be found at the mouth of the Wady Taiyiheh. For the direct road from the W. Gharandel to Sinai, and the only practicable one for caravans, goes over the table- land between this wady and the Wady Useit to the upper end of the W. Taiyibeli, a beautiful valley, covered with tamarisks and shrubs, where good water may be found by digging, and which winds about between steep rocks, and opens to the sea at Ras Zelimeh. To the north of this the hills and rocks come close to the sea, but to the south they recede, and leave a sandy plain with numerous shrubs, which is bounded on the east by wild and rugged rocky formations, and stretches for three miles along the shore, furnishing quite space enough therefore for the Israelitish camp. It is about eight hours' journey from Wady Gharandel, so that by a forced march the Israelites might hava CHAP. XVI. 1. 61 accompllslied It In one clay. From this point they went " to the desert of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai." The place of encampment here is doubtful. There are two roads that lead from W. Taiyibeh to Sinai : the lower, which enters the desert plain by the sea at the Murhha or Morcha well, not far from the mouth of the Wady eth Thafary, and from which you can either go as far as Tur by the sea-coast, and then proceed in a north- easterly direction to Sinai, or take a more direct road through Wady Shelldl and Badireh into Wady Muhatteh and Feirdn, and so on to the mountains of Horeb ; and the upper road, first pointed out by Burchhardt and Robinson, which lies in a S.E. direction from W. Taiyibeh through W. Shubeikeh, across an ele- vated plain, then through Wady Humr to the broad sandy plain of el Debhe or Debbet en Ndsb, thence through Wady Nasb to the plain of Debbet er Ramleh, which stretches far away to the east, and so on across the Wadys Chamile and Seich in almost a straight line to Horeb. One of these two roads the Israelites must have taken. The majority of modern writers have decided in favour of the lower road, and place the desert of Sin in the broad desert plain, which commences at the foot of the mountain that bounds the Wady Taiyibeh towards the south, and stretches along the sea-coast to Ras Muliammed, the southernmost point of the peninsula, the southern part of which is now called el Kda. The encampment of the Israelites in the desert of Sin is then supposed to have been in the northern part of this desert plain, where the well Murhha still furnishes a resting-place plenti- fully supplied with drinkable water. Ewald has thus represented the Israelites as following the desert of el Kda to tlie neigh- bourhood of Tur, and then going in a north-easterly direction to Sinai. But apart from the fact that the distance is too great for the three places of encampment mentioned in Num. xxxiii. 12-14, and a whole nation could not possibly reach Rephidim in three stages by this route, it does not tally with the statement in Num. xxxiii. 12, that the Israelites ]eft the desert of Sin and went to Dofkah ; so that Dofkah and the places that follow were not in the desert of Sin at all. For these and other reasons, De Laborde, v. Raumer, and others suppose the Israelites to have gone from the fountain of Murkha to Sinai by the road which enters the mountains not far from this fountain through Wady Shellal, and so continues through Wady Mukatteb to 62 THE SECOND BOOK OF MOSES. Wady Felran (Robinson, i. p. 105). But this view is hardly reconcilable with the encampment of the Israelites " in the de- sert of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai." For instance, the direct road from W. Gharandel (Elim) to Sinai does not touch the desert plain of el Kda at all, but turns away from it towards the north-east, so that it is difficult to understand how this desert could be said to lie between Elim and Sinai. For this reason, even Kurtz does not regard the clause " which is between Elim and Sinai" as pointing out the situation of the desert itself, but (contrary to the natural sense of the words) as a more exact definition of that part or point of the desert of Sin at which the road from Elim to Sinai crosses it. But nothing is gained by this explanation. There is no road from the place of encampment by the Red Sea in the Wady Taiyibeh by which a whole nation could pass along the coast to the upper end of this desert, so as to allow the Israelites to cross the desert on the way from Taiyibeh to the W. Shellal. As the mountains to the south of the W. Taiyibeh come so close to the sea again, that it is only at low water that a narrow passage is left [Burckhardty p. 985), the Israelites would have been obliged to turn eastwards from the encampment by the Red Sea, to which they had no doubt gone for the sake of the water, and to go all round the mountain to get to the Murkha spring. This spring (according to Burchltardt, p. 983, " a small lake in the sandstone rock, close at the foot of the mountain") is " the principal station on this road," next to Ayun Musa and Gharandel ; but the water is " of the worst description, partly from the moss, the bog, and the dirt with Avhich the well is filled, but chiefly no doubt from the salt of the soil by which it is surrounded," and men can hardly drink it ; whereas in the Wady Thafary, a mile (? five English miles) to the north-east of Murkha, there is a spring that " yields the only sweet water between Tor and Suez" (p. 982). Now, even if we were to assume that the Israelites pitched their camp, not by this, the only sweet water in the neighbourhood, but by the bad water of Murkha, the Murkha spring is not situated in the desert of el Kda, but only on the eastern border of it ; so that if they proceeded thence into the Wady Shellal, and so on to the Wady Feiran, they would not have crossed the desert at all. In addition to this, although the lower road through the valley of Mukatteb is described by Burckhardt as " much easier and more CHAP. XVI. 1. 63 frequented/' and by Robinson as " easier" than the upper road across Nasseb (Nasb), there are two places in which it runs throuf;^h very narrow defiles, by which a large body of people like the Israelites could not possibly have forced their way through to Sinai. From the Murkha spring, the way into the valley of Mukatteb is through " a wild mountain road," which is shut out from the eyes of the wanderer by precipitous rocks. " We got off our dromedaries," says Dieterici, ii. p. 27, " and left them to their own instinct and sure tread to climb the dangerous pass. We looked back once more at the desolate road which we had threaded between the rocks, and saw our dromedaries, the only signs of life, following a serpentine path, and so climbing the pass in this rocky theatre Nakb el Butera." St7'auss speaks of this road in the following terms : "We went eastwards through a large plain, overgrown with shrubs of all kinds, and reached a narrow pass, only broad enough for one camel to go through, so that our caravan emerged in a very pictorial serpentine fashion. The wild rocks frowned terribly on every side." Moreover, it is only through a "terribly wild pass" that you can descend from the valley Mukatteb into the glorious valley of Feiran (^Strauss, p. 128).^ For these reasons we must adopt KnoheVs conclusions, and seek the desert of Sin in the upper road which leads from ^ This pass is also mentioned by Graul (Reise ii. p. 226) as " a wild ro- mantic mountain pass," and he writes respecting it, " For five minutes the road down was so narrow and steep, that the camels stept in fear, and we ourselves preferred to follow on foot. If the Israelites came up here on their way from the sea at Ras Zelime, the immense procession must certainly have taken a long time to get through the narrow gateway." To this we may add, that if Moses had led the people to Sinai through one of these narrow passes, they could not possibly have reached Sinai in a month from the desert of Sin, to say nothing of eight days, which was all that was left for them, if, as is generally supposed, and as Kurtz maintains, their stay at the place of en- campment in the desert of Sin, where they arrived on the 15th day of the second mouth (xvi. 1), lasted full seven days, and their arrival at Sinai took place on the first day of the third month. For if a pass is so narrow that only one camel can pass, not more than three men could walk abreast. Now if the people of Israel, consisting of two millions of men, had gone through such, a pass, it would have taken at least twenty days for them all to pass through, as an army of 100,000 men, arranged three abreast, would reach 27 English miles ; so that, supposing the pass to be not more than five minutes walk long, 100,000 Israelites would hardly go through in a day, to say nothing at all about their flocks and herds. 64 THE SECOND BOOK OF MOSES. Gharandel to Sinai, viz. in the broad sandy table-land el Dehle or Debhet er Ramie, which stretches from the Tih mountains over almost the whole of the peninsula from N.W. to S.E. (yid. Robinson, i. 112), and in its south-eastern part touches the northern walls of the Horeb or Sinai range, which helps to explain the connection between the names Sin and Sinai, though the meaning " thorn-covered" is not established, but is merely founded upon the idea that Pp has the same mean- ing as njp. This desert table-land, which is essentially distin- guished from the limestone formations of the Tih mountains, and the granite mass of Horeb, by its soil of sand and sand- stone, stretches as far as .lebel Ilumr to the north-west, and the Wady Khamile and Barak to the south-west (yid. Robin- son, i. p. 101, 102). Now, if this sandy table-land is to be regarded as the desert of Sin, we must look for the place of Israel's encampment somewhere in this desert, most probably in the north-western portion, in a straight line between Elim (Gharandel) and Sinai, possibly in Wady Nash, where there is a well surrounded by palm-trees about six miles to the north- west of Sarhut el Khadim, with a plentiful supply of excellent water, which Robinson says was better than he had found any- where since leaving the Nile (i. 110). The distance from W. Taiyibeh to this spot is not greater than that from Gharan- del to Taiyibeh, and might therefore be accomplished in a hard day's march. Vers. 2—12. Here, in this arid sandy waste, the whole con- gregation murmured against Moses and Aaron on account of the want of food. What they brought with them from Egypt had been consumed in the 30 days that had elapsed since they came out (ver. 1). In their vexation the people expressed the wish that they had died in Egypt by the flesh-pot, in the midst of plenty, " bi/ the hand of Jehovah," i.e. by the last plague which Jehovah sent upon Egypt, rather than here in the desert of slow starvation. The form 1J''?^1 is a Hiphil according to the consonants, and should be pointed 137^, from r?n for |yn (see Ges. § 72, Anm. 9, and Ewald, § 114c.). As the want really existed, Jehovah promised them help (ver. 4). He w^ould rain bread from heaven, which the Israelites should gather every day for their daily need, to try the people, whether they would walk in His law or not. In what the trial was to consist, is briefly CHAP. XVI. 2-12. 65 indicated in ver. 5 : " And it will come to pass on the sixth day (of the week), that they will 'prepare what they have brought, and it will he double what they gather daily ^^ The meaning is, that what they gathered and brought into their tents on the sixth day of the week, and made ready for eating, would be twice as much as what they gathered on every other day ; not that Je- hovah would miraculously double what was brought home on the sixth day, as Knobel interprets the words in order to make out a discrepancy between ver. 5 and ver. 22. T^n, to prepare, is to be understood as applying partly to the measuring of what had been gathered (ver. 18), and partly to the pounding and grinding of the grains of manna into meal (Num. xi. 8). In what respect this was a test for the people, is pointed out in vers. 16 sqq. Here, in vers. 4 and 5, the promise of God is only briefly noticed, and its leading points referred to ; it is described in detail afterwards, in the communications which Moses and Aaron make to the people. In vers. 6, 7, they first tell the people, ^^ At even, then shall ye know that Jehovah hath brought you out of Egypt ; and in the morning, then shall ye see the glory of the Lord.'' Bearing in mind the parallelism of the clauses, we obtain this meaning, that in the evening and in the morning the Israelites would perceive the glory of the Lord, who had brought them out of Egypt. " Seeing" is synonymous with " knowing." Seeing the glory of Jehovah did not consist in the sight of the glory of the Lord which appeared in the cloud, as mentioned in ver. 10, but in their perception or experience of that glory in the miraculous gift of flesh and bread (ver. 8, cf. Num. xiv. 22). " By His hearing^' (iyipK'S), i.e. because He has heard, " your murrmiring against Jehovah (" against Him" in ver. 8,, as in Gen. xix. 24) ; for lohat are we, that ye mur- mur against us ?" The murmuring of the people against Moses and Aaron as their leaders really affected Jehovah as the actual guide, and not Moses and Aaron, who had only executed His will. Jehovah would therefore manifest Plis glory to the people, to prove to them that He had heard their murmuring. The announcement of this manifestation of God is more fully ex- plained to the people by Moses in ver. 8, and the explanation is linked on to the leading clause in ver. 7 by the words, " when He giveth," etc. Ye shall see the glory of Jehovah, when Jehovah shall give you, etc. — ^Vers. 9, 10. But before Jehovah PENT. — VOL. II. Jl 66 THE SECOND BOOK OF MOSES. manifested Himself to the people in His gioiy, by relieving their distress, He gave them to behold His glory in the cloud, and by speaking out of the cloud, confirmed both the reproaches and promises of His servants. In the murmuring of the people, their unbelief in the actual presence of God had been clearly manifested. " It was a deep unbelief," says Luther, " that they had thus fallen back, letting go the word and promise of God, and forgetting His former miracles and aid." Even the pillar of cloud, this constant sign of the gracious guidance of God, had lost its meaning in the eyes of the people ; so that it was needful to inspire the murmuring multitude with a salutary fear of the majesty of Jehovah, not only that their rebellion against the God who had watched them with a father's care might be brought to mind, but also that the fact might be deeply impressed upon their hearts, that the food about to be sent was a gift of His grace. " Coming near before Jehovah" (ver. 9), was coming out of the tents to the place where the cloud was standing. On thus coming out, " they turned towards the desert" (ver. 10), i.e. their faces were directed towards the desert of Sin ; " and, behold, the glory of Jehovah appeared in the cloud," i.e. in a flash of light bursting forth from the cloud, and revealing the majesty of God. This extraordinary sign of the glory of God appeared in the desert, partly to show the estrangement of the murmuring nation from its God, but still more to show to the people, that God could glorify Himself by bestowing gifts upon His people even in the barren wilder- ness. For Jehovah spoke to Moses out of this sign, and con- firmed to the people what Moses had promised them (vers. 11, 12). Vers. 13-15. The same evening (according to ver. 12, "be- tween the two evenings," vid. chap. xii. 6) quails came up and covered the camp, npy : to advance, applied to great armies, ipfe'n, with the article indicating the generic word, and used in a collective sense, are quails, oprirfOfiijTpa (LXX.) ; i.e. the quail- king, according to Hesychixis oprv^ vTrep/xeyidrj^, and Phot, oprv^ fjberya^, hence a large species of quails, 6pTvy€<; (Josephus), cotur- nices {Vulg.). Some suppose it to be the -^a^a of the Arabs, a kind of partridge which is found in great abundance in Arabia, Palestine, and Syria. These fly in such dense masses that the Arab boys often kill two or three at a time, by merely striking CHAP. XVI. 13-lM. 67 at them witli a stick as they fly (BurckJiardt, Syr. p. 681). But in spring the quails also come northwards in immense masses from the interior of Africa, and return in autumn, when they sometimes arrive so exhausted, that they can be caught with the hand (cf. Diod. Sic. i. 60 ; v. Schubert, JReise ii. p. 361). Such a flight of quails was now brought by God, who caused them to fall in the camp of the Israelites, so that it was completely covered by them. Then in the morning there came an " effusion of dew round about the camp; and when the effusion of dew ascended (i.e. when the mist that produced the dew had cleared away), behold there (it lay) upon the surface of the desert, fine, congealed, fine as the hoar-frost upon the ground.^' The meaning of the aTT. \ey. DBDHp is uncertain. The meaning, scaled off, scaly, decorticatum, which is founded upon the Chaldee rendering ^?ipo, is neither suitable to the word nor to the thing. The ren- dering volutatum, rotundum, is better; and better still perhaps that of Meier, " run together, curdled." When the Israelites noticed this, which they had never seen before, they said to one another, Nin |D, rl ean tovto (LXX.), "what is this?" for they knew not what it was. |0 for HD belongs to the popular phrase- ology, and has been retained in the Chaldee and Ethiopic, so that it is undoubtedly to be regarded as early Semitic. From the question, man hu, the divine bread received the name of man (ver. 31), or manna. Kimchi, however, explains it as mean- ing donum et portio. Luther follows him, and says, "Mann in Hebrew means ready money, a present or a gift;" whilst Ge- senius and others trace the word to HiOj to divide, to apportion, and render N^n |» " what is apportioned, a gift or present." But the Arabic word to which appeal is made, is not early Arabic; and this explanation does not suit the connection. How could the people say " it is apportioned," when they did not know what it was, and Moses had to tell them, it is the bread which Jehovah has given you for food ? If they had seen at once that it was food sent them by God, tTiere would have been no necessity for Moses to tell them so. Vers. 16-21. After explaining the object of the manna, Moses made known to them at once the directions of God about gathering it. In the first place, every one was to gather accord- ing to the necessities of his family, a bowl a head, rhich held, according to ver. 36, the tenth part of an ephah. _ ccordingly 68 THE SECOND BOOK OF MOSES. they gathered, "Ag that made much, ancThe that made little ^^ i.e. he that gathered much, and he that gathered httle, and measured it with the omer ; and he who gathered much had no surplus, and he who gathered Httle had no lack : " every one according to the measure of his eating had they gathered^ These words are generally understood by the Rabbins as meaning, that whether they had gathered much or little, when they measured it in their tents, they had collected just as many omers as they needed for the number in their families, and therefore that no one had either superflu/ty or deficiency. Calvin, on the other hand, and other Christian commentators, suppose the meaning to be, that all that was gathered was placed in a heap, and then measured out in the quantity that each required. In the former case, the miraculous superintendence of God was manifested in this, that no one was able to gather either more or less than what he needed for the number in his family ; in the second case, in the fact that the entire quantity gathered, amounted exactly to what the whole nation required. In both cases, the superintending care of God would be equally wonderful, but the words of the text decidedly favour the old Jewish view. — Vers. 19 sqq. In the second place, Moses commanded them, that no one was to leave any of what had been gathered till the next morning. Some of them disobeyed, but what was left went into worms (D'^ypin DV literally rose into worms) and stank. Israel was to take no care for the morrow (Matt. vi. 34), but to enjoy the daily bread received from God in obedience to the giver. The gathering was to take place in the morning (ver. 21) ; for when the sun shone brightly, it melted away. Vers. 22-31. Moreover, God bestowed His gift in such a manner, that the Sabbath was sanctified by it, and the way was thereby opened for its sanctification by the law. On the sixth day of the week the quantity yielded was twice as much, viz. two omers for one (one person). When the princes of the congregation informed Moses of this, he said to them, ^^Let to- morrow he rest (}iniiK'), a holy Sabbath to the Lord."" They were to bake and boil as much as was needed for the day, and keep what was over for the morrow, for on the Sabbath they would find none in the field. They did this, and what was kept for the Sabbath neither stank nor bred worms. It is perfectly clear from this event, that the Israelites were not acquainted with any CHAP. XVI. 22-31. 69 sabbatical observance at that time, but that, whilst the way was practically opened, it was through the decalogue that it was raised into a legal institution (see chap. xx. 8 sqq.). pn3K' is an abstract noun denoting " rest," and ri|iB^ a concrete, literally the observer, from which it came to be used as a technical term for the seventh day of the week, which was to be observed as a day of rest to the Lord. — Vers. 27 sqq. On the seventh day some of the people went out to gather manna, notwithstanding Moses' command, but they found nothing. Whereupon God reproved their resistance to His commands, and ordered them to remain quietly at home on the seventh day. Through the command- ments which the Israelites were to keep in relation to the manna, this gift assumed the character of a temptation, or test of their obedience and faith (cf. ver. 4). — Ver. 31. The manna was " like coriander-seed, white ; and the taste of it like cake with honey ^ ^l : Chald. ><']''J ; LXX. Kopiov ; Vulg. coriandrum ; according to Dioscorid. 3, 64, it was called 70/8 by the Carthaginians. nn''£iV is rendered eyKpi